


Origin of the Avatar

by Aelixander



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 19:28:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 65,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19116214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aelixander/pseuds/Aelixander
Summary: An alternate take on the first man to become the Avatar.Thousands of years ago Manu was just a waterbender on a job, the kind he's done a thousand times. When things go south he manages to save himself at the cost of another's life and discovers a disturbing ability. Blood-bending. Considered an abomination by the Tribes he escapes into a self imposed exile. Out in the world he meets a lover, a mentor, a patron, a friend and many enemies in a familiar if more hostile world. As he struggles to survive and remain free Manu starts to realize there is more to his newfound ability than he had first realized. The prospects terrify him but he will do what he must to stay alive. Little does he know that each step he takes brings him closer to his final destiny.





	1. Water

_Are you really surprised?_

I chuckle but it quickly turns into a wet cough that sends a searing cut down into my lungs. Blood bubbles at my lips. I look at my foe staring at me with its dead black eyes, the spear of ice that made it that way still shimmering red with blood as it holds up the head it had nearly cloven in two.

_No..._ I think looking into its gaping, mangled maw, its teeth the size of my fingers, its tongue lolling off to the side, blood mixed with spit foaming and dripping as it flapped in the wind. _Not surprised at all._

The beast had been terrorizing the village for weeks. A polar bear dog that had wandered south for some reason. Small for its kind though it was twice the size of a man. Starving and vicious it came down to the village gorging itself on anything it could find. At first it stuck to whatever meat anyone had been careless enough to leave out. But when people wised up and started to lock up their larders it found it had a taste for human flesh. That's when they called me.

Charming place. Small but exquisitely carved into the face of a glacier. The interior is an intricate lacework of tunnels and corridors making the whole thing seem like a great frozen hive. Every inch is chiseled with scrolls and whirls and delicate flowers of ice. Artistry that does not come cheap, which would explain how they could afford a waterbender of my caliber. It would've made a perfect fortress except the architects decided to riddle it with access ways. There were over a dozen gates, each letting on to a different floor of the village and with varying levels of security. Apparently they are short on guards and can't man all entries at all times. Instead they simply rotate which ones are protected on which days.

Considering its relative isolation the system worked well enough though only through its lack of need. The place was more of a retreat for rich artisans to practice their hobbies and crafts in the cold winter months where commerce comes to a halt in the poles. Only a bare minimum of the population stay year round to maintain the infrastructure. Still the system was easily exploited by a dog which is... telling. All the beast had to do was figure out which ones weren't being watched particularly close at the time and he had free reign of the place. He'd come, take what he needed then lose any brave enough to pursue in the maze of passageways. Then he'd make his way to the nearest unguarded exit and return to his lair to enjoy his spoils. All hunts for his lair have proven fruitless as he always manages to outrun anyone tracking him and leaves little trace. Many have gone out in search of it on their own but have found no sign. Some haven't returned.

Which is where I decided to start. It was pointless trying to track him in the village. Too many turns to get lost in and the dog knew the place better than me anyway. No, I thought it best to work out the beast's exit strategy. I figured that it probably would want to leave as close in the direction of its lair as possible and considering the lost people had all headed to a similar area I figured that would be the side to watch. So I left a nice cache of meat in a plausibly careless location in town and meditated by the Southern gate under a blanket of snow I had bent around me as camouflage.

Hours passed in the dark cold night. A light flurry drifted lazily down, fluttering specks of white and blue in the light of the full moon. Coupled with the silence it made me feel as if I were sitting at the bottom of the ocean. As if at any moment I would float away. Far, far away. The notion wasn't without its appeal.

I knew by some instinct I can't describe that he had arrived before I had seen him. With a turn of my head he materialized from the shadow of a gateway as if I had expected him precisely at that moment. I swear he glared straight at me, a look of defiance in his eyes as he displayed what he was carrying. My heart sank as I saw not shanks of meat but little arms and legs dangling from his mouth.

He'd found himself a child. My bait didn't work.

The plan had been simple. Give the dog what it wants so it wouldn't attack people. Let it leave the village and lead me to its lair. Wait till it had its guard down. Then strike.

All of that was forgotten when I saw that child. I stood, my cloak of snow dissolving around me as I gathered it into a cruelly sharp blade of ice. A quick jab sent it whistling through the air toward the beast. He proved agile, dodging the shot with a leap to the side. He growled and ran while I pursued, already blind with rage as I skated down the ice path I was forming.

He maintained an impressive pace for a while but soon began to grow tired and at last I gained on him. I was nearly there, ready to strike him down when he chucked the child's corpse into the air. It spun horrifically, mangled and broken, and landed directly on my path. I stumbled painfully over it and before I could tell up from down the beast was upon me.

Baring his claws he quickly tore a great rent in my side. He roared over my screams of agony, drowning them out, adding insult to injury. I was delirious with pain and reached for the nearest water, which happened to be my blood. I froze it and sent it with whatever strength I had up into its soft palate. He died instantly and collapsed twitching beside me, eventually succumbing with his head propped up by my little spear of blood.

Which has led me here, still bleeding quite profusely. I try to remember the healing lessons my Grandmother had taught me but it's getting hard to think. Still after an effort I remember how in many ways bending is like breathing. I simply let the blood that is pouring from my side “breathe” out and it begins to solidify, clotting at a much faster rate. Somewhere in my mind I'm aware that it's dangerous what I'm doing but I don't seem to have much choice. In any case the bleeding seems to have stopped, though the pain feels much worse. I feel very cold and know that isn't good.

The part of me that is giddy is very busy trying to comfort the part that is terrified. I am very tired and that scares me. Each breath I take in seems harder, sharper, only able to bring further pain. Death feels very real and very close. I wonder if I have minutes or hours. If I'll be able to tell the difference. My ability to stay awake quickly fades.

_Is that a voice?_ It's barely even a thought, just a bubble popping across the surface of my brain. There seems to be some sort of buzzing in the air. I wish it would stop and leave me to sleep. The pain is beginning to consume everything, so that I am unsure what I am without it.

A face breaks through my fading vision and the buzzing solidifies into a real voice though it seems so far away.

“Can you hear me?”

_Yes._ I think though I have no idea how to tell him. _I am dying._

“Can you stand?”

I laugh but it is only agony. _No you idiot. I'm dying!_ More blood flows out of my mouth. That's it... blood... I've lost too much blood... I sense it all around me in pools, in the solid clot in my side... My vision continues to fade. My thoughts desperate and scattered.

_So much blood..._ I sense it all around me, till it is all I can see. The blood and the pain. Blood was the only way to stop the pain. So I reach out and I take it.

I remember nothing. Simply darkness. Must've passed out. I come to in a feeling of warmth infusing my body. It feels glorious, like being filled with the nectar of life itself. Then I open my eyes.

I realize the man above me is screaming and has been for some time. His howls are chilling yet I can't seem to move. Threads of blood are pouring from his mouth, his nose, his eyes, his ears and flowing into me. It feels like a current, an irresistible flow of force. I am taking the man's life from him, yet I have no idea how to stop it. I moan in desperation as his cries become more hoarse and the tendrils of blood begin to thin and his skin begins to dry. Then at last I grasp the core of what I am doing and ebb the flow. The man collapses on top of me, nearly opening the wound at my side. He feels cold and I fear that I figured out the secret of it too late.

That's when I realize there are others speaking around me. Many sound quite alarmed. I feel woozy and sick and there is a burning in my heart but that gives way to a great void of sadness as I fall into unconsciousness. 

 

Awake. My whole body feels on fire. Soaked in sweat. Fever. Someone forces water down my parched throat. Any relief is spoiled by nausea. Thankfully I pass out before I vomit.

 

Awake again. Less sick. More cold. Throat is so dry. I sense a cup of water by my side and reach for it instinctively. It flows to my lips for a gulp before the stream collapses, covering me in ice cold water. The shock makes me jump which opens up my wound.

_There's the fire then..._ I think before crying through gritted teeth then passing out from the pain.

 

Again awake. Much better. Light-headed. Feeling funny. Still thirsty. Luckily there is someone to help me drink some water. She looks very sad and I wonder why.

_Am I going to die?_

 

Awake for sure this time. The fever and the medicine have cleared from my head. The pain is returning to my side but it is less now. More bearable. Another cup of water sits at my side. I find I have enough strength to pick it up and sip from it if I take it slow. Seems like I may make it after all.

“Is he lucid?” A voice accuses from the outside hall.

“He's had a rough recovery. That polar bear dog nearly ripped out his lung.” Another explains.

“But he'll live?” The voice didn't seem excited about the prospect.

“It looks promising, yes.” I take some heart in that.

“Good. It'll be better if he were killed under Tribe Law.” I lose a great deal more heart with that.

“Is that what he deserves?” I don't know who this is but appreciate their defense of me.

“He killed a man. Sucked the blood right out of him.” The first voice seems unimpressed by my defender. “I say he deserves worse than just death.”

“So repay him with the same crime he committed?” My defender remains dubious. “Doesn't feel right to me.”

“That's for the Tribe to decide. He faces the elders as soon as he's able to leave this room. You let me know when that happens.”

And that's the end of the conversation. Neither walk in leaving me with plenty of time to digest this lot of unpalatable information. I'm not surprised to find that the man from before is dead but it still hits me right in the gut, which is sensitive enough from my present condition.

I'd killed before. There were wars and other fights where my life was on the line. But this was the first I'd taken the life of someone who was trying to help me, or at the very least wasn't trying to do me harm, or at least would if given the chance. I try to remember his face but all I can see is his look of horror as his life's blood flowed from him. As I drained him to save myself.

_I didn't even know what I was doing..._ I protest, but even in my head it sounds weak. It may be true but that doesn't make anything about it less terrible. His blood... It's still flowing inside of me. Even though I suspect it's not possible I imagine I can feel it, itching in my veins like an infection. Will it always be there? Or will I consume even that much of him eventually?

“You're awake.” I recognize the voice as my defender. She looks at me with those sad, sad eyes. So she's also the one who help me drink before. I wonder what I had done to deserve such kindness from a stranger.

“I'm beginning to wonder... if... that's a good or... bad thing...” I mumble, not entirely sure if I'm speaking out loud. Even before the hunt I had been out of practice. Few people in my life to talk to. Not that there would be much to say to them. I can't talk about my work and my work is everything. Probably why I don't see them much anymore.

Perhaps my head isn't as clear as I thought. The woman seems to glow ever so slightly. I smile at this and her expression becomes fractionally less sad.

“You heard our conversation outside...” It isn't a question. “I'm sorry...”

“For what?” I ask. “He's right. I killed that man.”

For the first time she looks frightened. I can see her wonder if I did it on purpose. Wonder if I enjoyed it. Or maybe that's just the way I express my own self-doubt. Maybe it has nothing to do with her at all.

“Did you-?” She falters. Maybe it does.

“I... was blacking out...” I tell her. “I felt the blood around me... I thought it was mine... thought I could take it back... I had no idea...”

“It shouldn't even be possible.” She protests, sounding mildly curious. “We've used blood manipulation in our healing techniques for decades. No one's ever been able to bend it so strongly. It's...”

“Horrifying?” I finish for her. She nods, hugging herself. I notice she won't come any closer to me. I can't say I blame her. There is a long, awkward silence.

“They're going to kill me aren't they?” She just barely stops herself from nodding but it's enough for me to notice. The old sadness returns to her eyes. “Why do you care? For all you know I deserve it.”

“People like to say that. That someone deserves death.” It amazes me how quickly she transitions into fury. “As someone who witnesses it day by day I'd have to disagree. Mothers wither and die while murderers heal from their wounds vigorous and strong. Death is unfair. We don't even know what it is. How can we tell if someone deserves it?”

“You're a ponderous one.” I muse.

“Much of my life is spent waiting for people to heal or die. Gives me time to think.” She takes a hesitant step forward. My heart begins to race.

“And what are you thinking now?” I ask wondering if I truly want an answer.

“That there are so many things we can't control. So much pain and sickness and death that no one can stop.” Another step forward. I now notice she has a knife in her hand. It's not very large but then again I suppose it doesn't have to be. She keeps walking forward, more confident in her movement. I hold my breath as she goes to stab me with it unable to even scream.

She deftly cuts the cloths that were binding me to my bed, so close I feel its cold metal against my skin. I hadn't even realized I was bound till then.

“Can you stand?” I honestly don't know but figure I can't lose much by trying. It is a trial, especially without opening up the wound in my side again. Thankfully while I was out they had supplemented my clot with stitches but I don't want to take any chances. A couple tries carefully rocking gets me upright in the bed. Shaking off a dizzy spell I prop myself up on unsteady legs. Weak. I am so weak.

“If you want to leave it must be now.” She insists. “The captain is summoning guards for your room. He's been hounding for it for days but we've managed to convince them their interference would kill you.”

“Why-?” I croak.

“Because if death can be unfair then so can I.” There is something in the way she says this that scares me and I don't know why. “Do not make me regret my decision. Come.”

I find I don't have the strength to question or resist as she shoves a pack into my arms. She dresses me in a cloak... polar bear fur... newly made... I follow her as if stuck in a dream.

“Who are you?” I wonder aloud.

“A healer sick of her charges hurting one another.” There isn't much to say after that. I continue to follow her through the rest of the hospital, past the old and the sick and the dying. There aren't many but their pain hangs over me like a cloud. Soon enough we break through to outside. I had forgotten that the hospital was kept to the outer portion of the village in case of the need to quarantine. Already we are well away from it. She stops before a break in the glacier where the road runs north.

“You'll have to continue on your own.” She insists. “You'll be a wanted man. Probably not safe for you to remain in the South Pole.”

“I don't understand...” I can't put into words this feeling I have. Like I'm sinking but a part of me is telling me not to struggle.

“Then do not try to.” She smiles and no trace of her former sadness remains in her eyes. I honestly wonder if this is the same person. “Simply go. I hear the Earth Provinces are nice this time of year.” Then she turns and follows her own advice, leaving me with little choice but to do the same.

The road north is long, hard and dull. Sleepless nights in the cold as my wound itches like mad. A mild storm. Rationing my food to morsels. And of course the nightmares. It isn't until near the end of my journey that I stop wobbling on my feet. That I feel like a semblance of myself again.

Finally, I end up in the harbor town I'd been heading for. A tavern's lights glow with warmth and welcoming. I decide I had earned myself an ale for my trouble. It's doubtful word of my deeds had reached here before me. I sat down, disappointed to find out this particular pub did not carry ale, just some brown soup they called “stout”. He sets a mug in front of me, froth spilling over its lip.

I sip at it and it isn't bad. Thick for my tastes but its dark and almost sweet with a hint of cinnamon. Stronger than I expect too or else the blood I'd stolen had made mine thinner. Whatever the case it goes straight to my head and I find that once I've finished it's made me feel good enough to want another. The second tastes better than the first and I find myself making friends with my stool mates. Apparently I had been lonelier than I had thought and my brush with death was bringing out my sociability. As I order my third it becomes harder to speak but easier to laugh. That is until a guard grabs my wrist.

_I'm caught!_ I think. _Already, you fool?_ I can't find a way to argue with myself.

Luckily my new friends are the loyal kind. Somehow I had won them over during my drunken ramblings so that they rise up now to my defense. The guard is taken by surprise and properly beaten and somehow we manage to escape outside. I stumble and hit my head and everything goes black.

 

I awaken to the world spinning... no... rocking I think... I feel like a baby in a crib, swaddled up in layer upon layer of cloths. All of them are filthy and I realize I'm in a storage room of sorts. I breathe in and the combination of musk and shit and salt reveals to me that I'm on a ship. One at sea at that. I have no idea how I got here.

I go to get up and wince as pain slices up my side. Oh right. I look down fearing the worst but find the wound still holding up. Nothing festering yet despite myself. I hear someone creaking down the steps above me and freeze, unsure of what I should do. Was I welcome on this ship?

“Hey!” A hissing whisper cuts across to me. “You alive down there?”

“Depends on what you mean...” I grumble.

“Quiet!” The whisper hisses followed by a man appearing with his finger over his lips. “Captain isn't fond of stowaways.”

“Then why did you bring me aboard?” I hiss back.

“Seemed like a good idea at the time?” The man shrugs. “You said you were heading to the Earth Provinces and that's where we're going. Just lay low and you should be fine. Hungry?”

I find out how much I am when he tosses a heel of bread to me. I wolf it down, chasing it with the bowl of water he brought with him.

“I don't even remember your name...” I admit to him, feeling a mix of gratitude and guilt.

“That's because I didn't give it. Hajuk. And you?” He holds out his hand to me, rough and callused and strong. I take it feeling brittle in his grip.

“You didn't even ask me my name before taking me aboard?”

“I have a thing for blue eyes.” He laughs at my look of shock. “It's not like that. I'm not expecting anything. You looked like you needed a friend and I'm just the honest sort. I helped a man because he has beautiful eyes. Up to you what you want to do with that.”

He smirks and it's the first time I take a moment to get a good look at his face. Blurry memories surround it but it's difficult to hold onto them. A strong face, angular and covered in coarse dark stubble and punctuated by dark, deep-set eyes. Strong but soft in its own odd, stern way.

“I'm Manu.” I tell him. He tips his head in a mock bow and makes his way back up the stairs, leaving me to contemplate how quickly my life had become so strange.

I lay among the cloths for a long time, only leaving to relieve myself or eat. Unable to make a sound I figure there is little point in doing anything really. Just me alone with hours left to think about what I had done, what I was doing, what I was going to do.

So much of my life had been planned. I had lost my mother before I even remembered her, save for a couple I'm not sure are dreams or not. My father then lost his life in the last war between the Nations. It was a common enough thing. I was young but was noticed for my talent for waterbending. Top marks, they told me after I was tested. Meant for greatness.

I really believed that back then. I worked hard. Did better than anyone expected. That's when the special core had contacted me. A group of elite waterbenders who were hired for missions that required... nuance. It felt like a victory at first but seemed something short of what I would consider “greatness”. It failed to fill the great dark void I'd been feeling in my heart ever since I can remember.

The visit to the village glacier was meant to be a vacation. One I'd been due to have for years. The plan was to relax. But then I got there and they were already being terrorized by the beast. Something had to be done so the plan became to kill the dog and then relax. Really it was then that things all started going badly. Now there was no plan at all. Just lay here to be nursed back to health by a man with dubious motivations for doing so. At least I finally got my chance to relax.

Miraculously I am healing quite well. Somehow I escaped infection despite having done little to avoid it. I find it easier to breathe and the pain is not so bad as all the itching. Often I am driven to the brink of madness as it torments me and I'm unable to scratch it. Instead I scratch my chest but it hardly helps.

Hajuk adopts an oddly shy manner with me since his confession. Sometimes he comes and simply leaves food next to me with a smile before he leaves. His conversation doesn't pry. Sometimes he'll stay and say nothing. Just wait with me as we drift away in our own thoughts. It's... comfortable. Something I do not often ascribe to people.

At some point in our mutual silence I find myself next to him, our arms barely touching. I don't know when we had started to get closer or how long we had been sitting this way. Hajuk notices himself and shrugs, a mischievous glint in his eye as he lifts up his arms, a gesture that stops us from touching but lets him stay just as close. It's odd that I feel so sensitive to the heat coming off his body now when I hadn't noticed touching his skin before. He pulls out a haunch of dried meat from his pouch and tears off a piece with his teeth.

“Jerky?” He offers between chews. My stomach groans too loud for me to protest and I bite into the smoked something, relishing in the meat and the salt. I munch on it some more till Hajuk snatches it from me.

“Save some for me you ass!”

I laugh and a piece of meat gets lodged in my throat making me cough. We laugh together some more before he seems to arrive at a decision and leaves. While he's gone I start to think about what exactly is happening. My life thus far had been devoid of affection. No young loves. Nothing beyond trysts in the night, full of passion but quick to dissipate. And never with a man. It wasn't something I had ever considered before. Now that I am facing it plainly I do not know what to make of it. What exactly am I looking for with him? How much of it is born from desperation?

I don't see him for a while. At first I think he will report me to the Captain but after a night with no one coming I figure I'm safe for now. But then there is another lonely night. And another. I had saved some of the food he had given me before but that is running out. By now I have become so anxious that I find myself pacing, even though that is a risk. Any noise could expose me but at this point it would be better than starving to death.

Finally he comes, late at night he rouses me from sleep. I find myself grateful. Though I can't remember precisely I had a feeling I had been woken from a bad dream. His hands are on my shoulders and his face is close but not uncomfortably so.

“We have to be quiet.” He insists. “I'm sorry I haven't been around. Some of the crew noticed me coming down here all the time. Had to take a break to throw them off the scent. I'll probably only be able to come around late like this from now on.”

“Is it really worth it then?” I asked honestly.

“You tell me.” He gestures next to him and there is a decent spread of hard cheese and wrinkled grapes. I reach without thinking and pop a few grapes in my mouth. They are so sweet it makes my tongue tingle. I have to have some cheese to balance it out.

“That's not all.” He assures me, pulling out a wineskin. “Got my hands on some ale. I remember you complaining you couldn't have any back at the South Pole. That make up for it?” I snatch the wineskin from his hand.

“Depends on the quality of the ale.” I tell him before squirting a big gulp of it into my mouth. It tastes perfect and I go for another gulp but he snatches it back, sending a shower of it all over me. I try to stifle my surprise.

“Shh! I'm sorry but shh!” He tries his best to stop from laughing but he can't help but make a ridiculous face as he tries not to smile which proves to be too much for me. I start to chuckle, my resolve wavering as it starts to break into full blown laughter.

Hajuk tackles me back into my cloth bed, his hand covering my mouth with rough urgency. My laughter dies as he looks at me with such intensity in his eyes. I lay there stunned, unsure of what I should do. For the first time I feel in danger on the ship. Not from him, but from whatever he is protecting me from. I wonder what exactly is outside of my little storeroom.

We 're like that for a long while, just us in the silence with our eyes locked. Then at last his grip relaxes and he lets me up again.

“What would happen to me if I were discovered?” I ask him.

“If it's the captain? Throw you in the drink most like. There are some who would keep the secret in exchange for... favors. Better we avoid that altogether.” For no reason whatsoever this makes me feel calmer.

“Quite the ship you got here.” I tease.

“Worse than some.” He concedes. “Better than others.”

“So what's your plan?” I question him. “Besides smuggling stowaways?”

“What do you mean?” He seems skeptical.

“What do you want to do with your life?” I'm not sure why I'm asking him. I suppose in a way I could be looking for advice on the subject.

“Oh, that plan.” The smirk comes back again, danger forgotten for now. “Simple. Follow my heart.”

“That's hardly a plan at all!” I accuse.

“It's a waste of time to get into the details.” He refutes. “Life changes those on a whim. Might as well not depend on them.” He hands me the skin again. “The rest is yours. I'd ration the cheese and grapes. It might be a bit before I'm able to come back.”

I spend the rest of the night drinking the ale, feeling like my head is circling a drain, sinking ever deeper. My thoughts are jumbled, often interrupting each other before they're finished so that they never quite resolve and I'm left as if stuck in a room with many voices calling my name and I can't figure out for the life of me which one to listen to.

I follow his advice with the cheese and grapes, finding myself often without appetite anyway. What little I would eat I played with long before doing so, mashing it into a red white paste that tasted sour and woody. Days pass and I drift in and out of dream, sometimes unsure which is which. I see the man I killed in these moments, his blood erupting from his face like spiderwebs and wrapping all around me. Is it my guilt or his ghost haunting me? I do not know. He does not speak to me. Does not explain. Only looks at me sadly with those deflated bags of his eyes.

“You look sick.” Hajuk's whisper wakes me up in the dead of night. I have no idea how long it has been but I had ran out of cheese paste over a day ago. He stands above me, all concern. I shiver in a cold sweat, well into a fever I hadn't felt was coming. “Drink this.”

He hands me something hot in a bowl. I smell brine in the vapor but not much else.

“Seaweed soup.” He lets me know. “It'll help you feel better.” I sip at it and it is salty and bitter. Still I drink it in the hopes that he's right. At least it makes my throat feel less dry.

“We'll be berthing at Whaletail Island tomorrow.” Hajuk informs me. “I'm hoping to find some meat and medicine while we're there.” I sit up and continue working on my soup. The cover of cloths fall from me and my shirt sticks to my back, making me shiver.

“You need to keep warm.” He nags, pulling up the covers to wrap around me. His arm grazes my neck and I close my eyes and drift into it, unable to help myself. Then I'm in his arms and in this moment I don't care what it means I am now warm where I was cold and that is worth whatever confusion I felt. Wrapped as I am I feel myself falling asleep before I can think to fight it.

I don't remember the last time I had slept so well. I wake in silence and darkness to the rolling of the ship and the rise and fall of Hajuk's chest beneath my head. I can hear the ocean lapping against the hull and the wind whistling above and the cry of gulls...

I wonder how long we have been asleep. I lift up my head but it makes me dizzy so that it plops back down, knocking the wind out of Hajuk. He wakes up with a small groan and I look up to see him smirking down at me.

“Have a nice nap?” He murmurs.

“I wasn't alone in taking one.” I argued.

“Right... right...” He looks ready to fall right back to sleep. I almost join him but feel something hard jab into my back.

“The hell is that?” I wince.

“Oh that?” Hajuk laughs, reaching down and taking out a few rocks from his pouch. “Just my rocks.”

“What do you need rocks for?”

“Well...” He makes them float above his hand, spinning a slow ballet.

“You're an earthbender?” I ask, incredulous.

“Yep.” He confirms as if it had been obvious.

“What's an earthbender doing sailing the ocean?” I could not imagine being so separated from my element like that.

“I wanted to find all the earths out there.” He admitted. “You'd be amazed at the different kinds I have in my collection. Anyway, sorry.” He moves his pouch and makes to get comfortable again.

“What time is it?” I wonder aloud. His eyes snap back open as someone comes calling.

“Hajuk!” I hear a man yell. “Where the hell are you, Hajuk! We'll be landing soon! Need you to help prep! HAJUUUUK!!”

“Shit.” Hajuk jumps up leaving me to fall among the cloths. I could only lay there, sick and weak. He rushes to the stairs but someone opens the hatch at the top.

“What is your obsession with this storeroom, Hajuk?” A man roars down from the hatch. I see him look furious at Hajuk. Then he notices me. “Oh.”

“Mado, please.”

“Please what?” Mado cuts Hajuk's plea down. “Keep my mouth shut so you can bugger yourself silly?”

Hajuk doesn't seem to have anything to say to that.

“I never liked ya much, Hajuk. Too flighty by far... but this?” Mado shakes his head. “Stowaway's is bad luck you know? Buggery not much better. You'll kill us all if I let you.” Mado makes his way back up the stairs and up through the hatch.

“Tell ya what.” He spits down the stairwell, narrowly missing me. “I won't say nothin' if you two disappear come Whaletail Island, you hear?”

“Fine by me.” Hajuk accepts. Mado snorts in disgust and leaves. Hajuk looks back at me. “Stay here till we land. I'll come for you.” And with that he disappears through the hatch himself leaving me to wonder how long it would take for someone to find me, and who it would end up being.

The minutes are filled with the shouts of men hard at work. Hoisting sails. Tying down ropes. I can feel the ship slowing down, pulling into port. It's a long slow process but eventually the sailors have us bobbing gently at the docks. Still I spend a long time waiting. Light fades into dark until at last I hear fumbling steps down the stairway. Hajuk bumps into something in the storeroom, cursing loudly and sounding more than a little drunk.

“Manu!” He calls in a hoarse whisper. “Manu! You still here?”

“You told me to stay.” I remind him.

“Yeah... well... I've been gone a loooooong time.” He chuckles a little bit to himself, I can hear him coming closer.

“I won't argue that.”

“Sorry, I would've probably left if you were me.” I try not to laugh at his mistake. “But I had to go out drinking with the boys to celebrate landfall or else it would've looked suspicious. The rest have drowned themselves in whores and wine by now.”

“You regret not being there with them?” I ask.

“Of course not.” Hajuk is startlingly close. I feel his hot breath on my face. “Your eyes... I can see them in the dark.”

Before I can say a word his lips are on mine. Surprise shoots to the top of my head. I should be furious with him. Kissing me when I didn't even know if it was what I want. And yet it is the way he does it, so tenderly pressing with the tips of his lips and softly coaxing mine onto his that melts all my other thoughts away. He places his hands upon my face, lightly touching my temples with his fingertips. For all its beautiful subtlety it is also quick, urgent. I have to take a deep breath to steady myself as he pulls away.

“Oh boy I'm drunk.” Hajuk moans, slapping his hand against his forehead. “I'm sorry. I told you I wasn't expecting anything and... I'm not, y'know. I'm not! It's true! It's just your eyes are so fucking beautiful and I wasn't expecting to see them so clearly down here and I kind of just went for it and-.”

I cover his mouth with my hand, giving him what I imagine is the same look he had given me when our roles had been reversed. He seems to understand.

“I'm not sorry.” I say, only certain that it's true as I say it. “That was... I mean... I've never...” I look up at him, wanting to explain. “I'm not sure I'm ready for... that.” He looks disappointed and I know I've said the wrong thing.

“I mean... that... emotion...” I don't have any other way to put it. “I've become used to being alone...”

He perks up, seeming to be heartened by what I'm saying. Not that I understand why.

“Sooooo I nicked a bottle of whiskey from my mates.” He notices the look on my face. “He stole it from an inn! So really it kind of cancels out. You need some whiskey? I'd say you need some whiskey. Who doesn't need whiskey? Is water of life!”

The bottle is in my hands, smooth and brown and half full. I pull the cork from its top and pour a healthy portion down my throat. I relish as it burns its way down to my stomach.

“That's the spirit!” Hajuk encourages. “Gotta catch up!” He pulls me out of the cloth nest that had been my home for the past what? Week? Two? More? It's hard to tell. “Come on, let's get you out of this hole. I got us a room at a respectable inn.”

He leads me up the stairs and I realize that this is the first time in weeks that I'd seen the sky. A blanket of stars covers it, cosmic clouds sparkling in the dead of night. The moon hangs like a sickle ready to tear open the firmament. The fresh sea air is crisp with cold and salt, refreshing after the steady musk of the storeroom.

“Come” Hajuk urges, knocking the bottle in my hand till I take a swig. We rush down the gangway and melt into the town. It's not much but after being subjected to weeks of imprisonment in the storeroom it feels huge, open, bustling. People laugh raucously into the night. Lanterns speckle the inky blackness of the alleyways. We turn down so many I can't remember the way back to the ship. I ask myself if it matters anymore as I take another drink. By now the whiskey has started to do its work making my head warm and fuzzy.

We come up to the inn and I immediately question Hajuk's definition of respectable. Not that it is particularly rank, it just looks as if it has seen brighter days. There are cracks in the plaster and bleached, sun-worn stains in the paint. Still it looks clean enough.

Hajuk leads me up the stairs to our room. Inside is a bed. A big, fluffy, honest to goodness fully made up bed. I dive into it without hesitation and shimmy my way under the covers groaning with delight as I do so. Hajuk laughs and it's full and rich. So much more musical than the stifled chuckles we had shared on the ship. He slips inside the covers himself, taking care to keep a respectful distance from me, of which I'm glad. For now it is enough for me to just enjoy the comforts of a real bed to sleep in.

We pass the bottle back and forth laughing as we tell stories to each other. Well, he would tell the stories. Mine aren't really the funny sort. Except maybe lately, and even that is a stretch.

The man knew how to get in and out of trouble. Apparently he was running away from the South Pole like me. Well, not exactly like me. He managed to not kill anyone at least... Just a stolen artifact. One he sold at far too cheap a price. Still the sum he got would last for a while. He had planned to run farther but now figured his ousting from the ship might actually work to his advantage. Less time to eat away at the funds.

“So I guess we're both kind of stuck here for the moment.” Hajuk murmurs sleepily. “What do you think you're going to do?”

I really hadn't thought of it till then. I had been focused almost entirely with getting away. And healing. Mostly healing. It was different when there were months ahead of me before I had to think of anything besides reaching the Earth Provinces. But now...

Whaletail Island is outside of Water Tribe territory, but it isn't that far. They may not come looking for Hajuk over his thievery but would they come looking for me? I honestly do not know. In any case it doesn't look like I have much choice.

“I don't think I have enough of anything to make a plan...” I said. “What about you?”

“I'm not thinking too much past tonight.” He belches. “Got a belly full of whiskey and good company. Tomorrow I'll get a look around the place. See if it's worth staying. You're welcome to tag along.” I spend a moment indulging in doubt before I realize I'm already holding his hand.

He grins and we spend the rest of the night in silence. His slow steady breaths lull me into sleep.


	2. Earth

Hajuk found his way into my arms during the night. Obviously I hadn't objected in my sleep. When I go to lift my head it swims. Apparently getting drunk on spirits wasn't the best way to combat a fever. The headache sneaks up on me in one merciless, slow building throb. Hajuk wakes up to my groan and turns, our faces so very close again.

“You look terrible.” He tells me and I can't help but laugh.

“Who doesn't in the morning?” I want to know.

“I'm sorry. I was blind drunk before I even came back to you.” He takes in a trembling breath as I imagine he experiences his own consequences. “Forgot you were sick.”

“I kind of did too.”

Hajuk tosses himself on his back, throws an arm over his face and groans. “Oh I'm glad to jump ship right now. If I had to prep the sails today I think I'd actually puke my guts out.”

“I thought you were going to explore today?” I tease.

“Oh, that's going to have to wait till you feel better.”

“And you.” I add.

“And me.” He concedes. “Still.” He rocks himself out of the bed. “Time to get that meat and medicine I promised.” He leaves and that's the start of our life here. Returning with the spoils he feeds me back to health. Once that's taken care of we head out into the island to see what kind of home we've been forced into.

The town is nothing special. Mostly a collection of hovels grouped together like a cluster of mussels on a pier. But the island... It seems less a mountain rising from the ocean and more like a collection of narrow, wind-carved pillars of rock woven together. Despite the cold there's vegetation lining everything which glows green in the morning sun when the whole island is covered in mist like a great smoky net.

“There's good earth here.” Hajuk remarks as he places his hand on one of the pillars. “Solid but not forbidding. The surface is rocky but I can feel fuzzy pockets just underneath. Might be fertile soil in one of them.”

“You sound like a farmer.” I accuse.

“Was what I was raised to be.” He explains. “Most earthbenders are used for farming or infrastructure. Not as glamorous as flinging rocks around but very useful. It's partly why I left.”

“And now you're planning on doing it here instead.”

“Doesn't seem so bad here.” His voice sounds distant. “I asked around town while you were recovering. Seems like the townsfolk don't mind neighbors as long as they keep to themselves. There are Air Nomads who come occasionally but they mostly keep up high in the mountains. I can build us a shelter no problem we just need to find a good water source.”

“Oh, that won't be a problem.” I collect the nearby mist around my hand into a ring of water. He shakes his head in disbelief and then I flick over the water into his face. He tackles me laughing, pinning me to the ground, droplets of water pouring from his face onto mine. I push him off of me and bend the water away.

“You should've told me you were a waterbender!” Hajuk reprimands. “Very useful on a ship. I could've sold keeping you on board with the Captain.”

“Too late now.” I shrug. He shakes his head but I notice he's still smiling.

It takes a long while to find the perfect place. Many of the soft spots Hajuk senses are duds. Loose gravel and sand that wouldn't grow a weed. The more fertile places are either taken or not near enough to fresh water to be worth it. Only at the end of the day do we find what we are looking for.

On top of a hill lay a soft patch of grass. The soil it grows out of seems shallow but Hajuk senses more underneath a great flat boulder that acts as a sort of lid. Nearby I sense an underground spring which would be easy enough to redirect as needed with our collective bending. There's no one around for miles.

We figure we'd probably need to camp so we had gotten a tinderbox and blankets with some cram to eat. Hajuk summons rocks to him to make a circle and after a little time foraging we manage to get a fire going. Luck is with us this night and the sky remains clear, a dazzling display of stars painted across it. We talk together about nothing in particular, finding comfort in our voices and the warmth of the fire. I find that now that I'm healthy and my wound had healed that I do not feel the need to be so close to him. Ever since our first night at the inn we had been cautious around each other. We had a silent agreement to keep our distance.

When I go over to him I tell myself it's because of the damp, cold air. And it is. We had tried to sleep on opposite sides of the fire but I can't seem to reach it. Instead I toss and turn and the flames slowly die to embers, the air cooling with every moment. I shiver and then make a decision. So yes, it's because of the cold, damp air. But only because I want it to be.

Half awake he lets me under his blanket and throws an arm around me. His other arm acts as a pillow and it's only moments after he presses me against him that I'm dead asleep.

The morning greets us with a deep thick fog. Our blankets are crusted with a thin layer of frost and the campfire is completely out, thin streams of smoke drifting up into the morning sky. It's cold. I think the only thing making it not completely freezing is the warmth we share between us. I shudder, waking up Hajuk behind me.

“Phew! Gets colder up here than I thought!” He tosses the blankets off the both of us making it that much worse.

“What are you doing!” I cry through chattering teeth.

“No time to waste.” He tells me, annoyingly chipper in the morning. “We'll need some real shelter if we want to actually live out here.”

Most of the morning has me waiting as he plans out the space around us. The top layer of grass is completely destroyed as he compresses the soil, using mounds of it as lines for a sort of floor plan. Every now and again he'll ask me where I'd want a window or a table. I usually respond with yes, occasionally pulling mist from the air to grab a drink. At noon the sun finally breaks through the clouds and mists and shines, dissipating the latter. I gather as much as I can into skins before they completely disappear.

“I think I've got it.” Hajuk announces as I hand him a skin. He takes off his shirt in the afternoon heat. His body is solid, sturdy, rough as if it were carved from a cliff face. By the scars on his sides and shoulders it looks as if he might have been carved up by something at least. I look at the lines he's made in the soil and can only see an impenetrable maze. “Stand back.”

It's a pleasure to watch him work, shifting through the stances that break pieces from the rocky lid below and the ones that bring those same pieces above ground. It surprises me how precise he can be, the pieces he breaks so nearly perfectly squared. They fit like puzzle pieces, sliding together into well placed grooves. After a few hours he forms something of a house.

He comes to me absolutely covered in dirt and sweat. “That should be good enough for the basic structure. The little details will take the longest. You think you can catch us some dinner or do you just want to watch me all day?”

“I know what I want to say.” I tease. “But I have a feeling it might be the wrong answer.”

“Just get us some food, damn it.” He seems genuinely agitated which amuses me all the more.

“Building a house works up an appetite. Time to start pulling your own weight. You know how to hunt right?”

“Just give me one of those skins.” I tell him. He tips one over his face to rinse some of the dirt and grime off before tossing it to me. “If there's anything on the island worth eating, I'll find it.”

Hajuk mumbles something indistinct that I take as dismissal. I find myself excited at the prospect of exploring the island on my own. It has been a while since I've put my tracking skills to good use. This time I hope to find something less vicious and large.

Most of the wildlife seems to comprise of birds, which is unfortunate since I would often hear them more than see them. Any ones I did see proved nimble and ducked quickly out of sight before I could even hope to begin to aim at them. They are wary of humans it seems.

For hours I wander through the maze of cliffs and rocky spires all around me. It amazes me that there are pseudo-forests among them considering the structure of the island here. Yet somehow, though bent by wind the trees have stubbornly grown till they triumphed, making impossible groves. It is in these places that I find what I am looking for, signs of a herd of rabaroo.

Rabaroos tend to be a plague on farmers. I'd dealt with them all the time in my younger days when all they would give me were low danger jobs. They eat everything they can and stomp on whatever they can't, spiteful creatures. They come together to breed at an alarming rate then fight each other when their population becomes too big. Some are killed while others flee, often in couples that splinter off as seeds for other herds. From the minor damage caused by this feeding path it looks like I'm on the trail of one of these couples.

It isn't long before I find them but the evening starts to come on. I see them busy trying to build a makeshift burrow and can't help but sympathize seeing as how I'm doing the same thing with Hajuk. I only hope we have better luck than these two.

Standing in the direction of the setting sun I keep low as I edge closer to them for a better shot. One of them is grooming themselves, nibbling at its meaty leg with its overlarge front teeth while the other wallows in dirt. Two young juveniles barely past the cusp into adulthood. They have no idea I'm here. I can take the one grooming easily enough but I want them both and I can't get a good shot with the one that's wallowing. Rabaroos are quick and nimble and their hearing is uncanny. I'd only have one chance. I carefully pry open my waterskin, slowly drawing water from it so it doesn't splash or glug. I take enough for two tiny sips and press them down into little shards of ice. They hover over my shoulder as I wait for the perfect moment.

I press my fingers to my lips and let out a short, high whistle that sounds pretty close to a baby rabaroo. It convinces the couple as they both snap up at attention, craning their necks as they try to pinpoint where the cry is coming from.

My shards shoot out as I splay the fingers of my hand. Both land exactly where I want them to, tearing into their exposed necks, neatly puncturing the main artery. A cheap trick but an effective one. The instinct to care for one's young is hard to ignore. They both collapse to the ground dead before I even reach them. Their dull eyes glare at me accusingly.

“Sorry little ones.” I apologize too late. “But a man's gotta eat.”

I clot up the wounds so I don't get bled on and drape their corpses over my shoulder before heading home. Funny how quickly I call it that. 

Back home the hut doesn't seem to have changed much. Gained a grassy roof and a fire glowing inside. I make my way there and see where Hajuk had spent a lot of his work. Stone furniture litters the different rooms. Counters and tables and couches and most impressive of all a great stone hearth where the fire roars delightfully. Haluk is sitting on the couch closest to the fire with his heels up. I go to sit next to him but it ends up hurting my tail bone.

“This is by far the most uncomfortable thing I've ever sat in.” I groan.

“It's a prototype. Work in progress.” He insists. “You got something for us?”

“You object to rabaroo?” I ask.

“At this point I wouldn't object to sea slugs.” He tells me. “How long till I can eat 'em?”

“That depends.” I admit. “Got a sharp knife?”

“Nope.” He shrugs. “We might be able to get one in town.”

“Too late for that.” I say. “And I'm too tired. You can go if you like.”

“I'm exhausted, mate.” I believe him. Even with his shirt back on he's still filthy. “You know what it takes to earthbend a fucking house?”

“No idea.” I reply. “But I might have something that will work.”

It's not pretty but I manage to slice at the rabbits with my waterbending. Water can cut pretty well when used correctly and for the tougher stuff like bones ice can be pretty effective. Still, it's crude work. I hack the skin off, wasting meat, and the cuts are less than perfect. Hajuk makes a sort of stone grill over the fire and I fill it with the ragged, haphazard pile of meat I had made of the rabaroos. It takes a while but soon we hear a satisfying sizzle.

“It's too bad we don't have any spices.” Hajuk laments as he stirs our meal.

“As long as it's not seaweed I'll take it.” I laugh.

“That was all I had at that point!” He defends himself. “I came through with better didn't I?”

“Yeah.” I admit. “I guess you did. Think it's ready?”

“I'm getting hungry enough not to care.” With that Hajuk grabs at a random bone, wincing at the heat of it. He pulls it out quickly with his fingertips and blows on it before wolfing down a chunk of meat. I can see him shudder at the heat of it as it painfully makes its way to his stomach but he looks very satisfied once it finds its way there.

We feast into the night and with our bellies full pass out on the stone bed. It had been a tiring day for both of us so that the stony surface didn't keep us up.

The next day Hajuk has us up before the sun rises. I express my displeasure by swatting away his hands but he eventually uses his bending on me to push me out. I make a mental note to pay him back in kind soon. We stand outside in the grey pre-dawn just to shiver for all I know.

“The topsoil here's no good.” Hajuk explains. “We need the wet stuff underneath. That's where the nutrients are. I tried to reach for it yesterday but I can't really tell the difference between the ground and soil. If I dig too deeply I could burst through the hillside and we could lose it. Can you feel anything?”

I breathe in and reach out with my senses. The underground spring rushes loud and clear but I try my best to ignore it, to find the quieter water sleeping underneath me. For a long moment I feel nothing but then yes, I can sense it, like a gentle hum just beyond my hearing. Closing my eyes I reach out with my hand, slowly balling it into a fist and releasing. The water below pulses with it.

“I won't be able to bring up the mud on my own.” I tell him. “Just the water. Reach out. Can you feel me pulsating the water?”

I watch Hajuk close his eyes, his mind going into the earth. “Yes.” He says with a smile. “It's like a heartbeat.” He sinks into the soil up to his knees. “I can feel it thrumming through my body now.”

“Focus.” I implore him. “I will move the water. Use it as a guide and move the earth with me. Watch my movements. Try to match them as best as you can.”

“I can't earthbend like a waterbender.” Hajuk argues, his eyes popping open, skeptical.

“You want the good soil to flow up to the surface right?” He snorts because he doesn't have an answer. “Then we'll have to treat it like water. Now, concentrate.”

Despite his protests Hajuk does as he is told. His eyes smolder like coals as they fix on me with an intensity I only am beginning to understand from him. So open and vulnerable but steadfast and furiously strong. His arms follow mine, perfectly in sync as our fingertips graze the topsoil. I reach down and pull at the water spread so thin within the soil below. It quivers as it makes its way up, as I claw at the dirt with my fingers. Hajuk follows my lead, all his attention on me and the earth surrounding my water. Achingly slow I start to spin it, eyes locked with Hajuk as he does the same, teasing the earth into a whirlpool, no longer quite earth and water but something in between, a pond of rippling dirt. Then I reach out, nodding for Hajuk to do the same. Our hands almost touch as we reach into the tormented land, punching a hole that dives deep into the maelstrom, and pull. 

A black ooze, rank muck that had festered in this earth's bosom for a thousand years erupts from the punctured soil. Fetid with life it floods over the topsoil with such force that it spills into our newly made house. Hajuk laughs all the harder because of it.

“You have no idea what luck we have.” He cries out, elated as he shoves his hands straight into the disgusting mire that only now was beginning to settle. “This must have been a lake-bed once. Long ago. So much dead life here, compressed for ages and made into this fertile paste. We could grow whatever we wanted with this... If it weren't so cold.”

“Spring has only just begun.” I assure him. “It should warm up soon enough.”

“We'll see.” Hajuk apparently has his doubts. “In the meantime you'll need to find us another meal out there.”

And so it is for weeks on end. Hajuk would remain on the homestead, making slow but steady improvements while I hunt for food. Hajuk barters his earthbending services and the skins I bring home for all sorts of things. You'd be surprised what people will give you for a quick fix to foundation troubles. It isn't long till we have a mattress for our bed and dishes and the like. Hajuk had gathered a collection of seeds and they were indeed growing. But they have not born fruit and I can't help but wonder if they ever will. If Hajuk is a liar and knows nothing at all about farming.

Months pass and things get better. Easier. The garden starts to show its worth and we have an assortment of fruits and vegetables. Not much but enough to break the monotony of meat we have fallen into. I take it into my head to capture a rabaroo couple for their milk and it manages to work. They breed like mad but that manages to supply a steady source of good meat for us. At night we sleep together but I won't let him do more than hold me in his arms. He seems to understand, never overstepping his bounds. At some point we manage to make our own wine. It is a bright red from the berries we grew in the fall, plump and juicy and so sweet as to almost be sour. The wine it made is light and sweet. A little too much so but the alcohol is strong enough.

I look around, a joyful buzz bubbling in my brain. The stone walls around me have things we have collected in our time here. Here a seal-turtle shell we'd found on the beach below us. There a cloth draped over the doorway, stained in reds and blues and embroidered in golden yellow thread with symbols I cannot read.

 _How long have we been here?_ I wonder. A year? Longer? I honestly do not know but I feel the air becoming cold again after an excellent fall. I can taste it in the wine we drink and a part of me feels sad that it is going away. I look over to Hajuk and come to a decision I hadn't known I'd been mulling over in these months. I put down my rough, chipped, earthenware cup and walk over to Hajuk as he takes a drink, licking the wine from his lips.

I’d intended to kiss him like he'd kissed me before. That gentle roll with exquisite attention to detail that had overcome me so deftly with the subtlety of its touch. Instead my drunken mind misjudges the force I need and so I crash into him. I push his head back with the force of my kiss, my lips smearing over his with urgency. He steadies himself and me, holding my sides as he meets my passion with his own, his hand reaching slowly up my back as his lips part mine. Fingers run through my hair as he ever so lightly slides the tip of his tongue into my mouth.

I break away, breathless, unsure of what I want in this moment. I look into his eyes, soft and dark and fiery and realize I'm terrified of the feelings they bring. Afraid of what I could read in them, of what they could read in me.

“It's never been like this with a man for you, has it?” I can hear the frustration in Hajuk's voice. It makes me furious.

“It's never been like this with anyone.” I burst out. “In the past they left me or I left them, finding some excuse or another for doing it. But with you it's like I have no choice. And I hate that. I've always been fine on my own.”

“I didn't mean to force you into anything...” It hurts to see him look so wounded.

“You didn't force me. I choose not to have a choice.” I'm trying to explain but I feel like every word I say mixes things up more. “It's just hard to let go of the way I've always handled things.”

“I'm sorry-.” His eyes are watering and it makes my throat tighten.

“Don't be sorry!” I bark and kiss him to stifle any further protest.

He leads me to our bed. Our bodies plop down and I am overwhelmed with sensation as we lay skin to skin, our lips caressing each other till we fall completely into the depths of one another.

 

Time goes by and home becomes more homey. Hajuk gets it in his head to plant fruit trees and despite my doubts they grow quick and strong. I hunt less and less as the garden grows and the seeds burst to saplings and saplings into young fruiting trees. It is only after I bite into a young apple of a tree we once had planted that I realize we have been here for years.

It's so obvious when I look around, thinking of that barren hill we had spent that night long ago camping under the stars. Our house is fully furnished and even decorated. A woman in town paints well and is willing to whip up something nice for a home if you bring her supplies. The grassy field is now a plentiful garden. Even now I see that the tomatoes are ripening well. It will be time to harvest them soon. All of it had grown up in a time that had melted away in contentment. In that moment I want it to last forever and for a time it seems to.

 

I'm shaving. It's a particularly cold winter morning and I'm frustrated that I have to go out for a real hunt for the first time in years. Somehow I managed to lose the alpha in my rabaroo herd and there are no suitable males to replace him. I'd have to find one in the wild and hope he integrates well enough or we'd have to find a couple and start from scratch with a new herd. Distracted, I nick myself with the razor, a bloom of red appearing on my neck. I dab at it with a cloth and take a look at my face in the mirror for the first time in long while. It's older than I remember, a few lines furrowing my brow more than I would like. But most disturbing is the pale line of grey that has appeared among the raven black. Only one strand but it seems to shine out like a beacon.

I hear the herd start to bleat in agitation. Not unusual in the morning if a bit irritating. The group could get themselves in quite a frenzy over nothing and I am in no mood for it this morning. I decide I should check on them after my shave. That is until the bleating takes on a more desperate tone. Something has them terrified.

I set down my razor and run outside, figuring a wolf-bat might have gotten to the herd. I'd ousted them from the local caves but there was no telling if you got them all. I draw the water from the skin at my side as a precaution, letting it hover over my arms and shoulders as I make my way towards the pen.

I see a silhouette fly across the sliver of sun rising over the horizon and I toss a spear of ice at it, hoping to scare it off. Only then do I notice that it's a lot bigger than a wolf-bat. That it's something much, much worse.

The shape slithers through the sky. The sun's fire catches upon the clouds as dawn breaks. A part of me knows I should do something but I have no idea what. The shape continues to grow, forming into a serpent, it's wings spread wide as it glares at me with it's sharp, cat-like eyes. I realize it's coming straight for me. I can see it prepare the flames in its mouth, know without a doubt it means to burn me to a crisp. Yet I cannot move.

 _I'm going to die._ I think as it continues to swoop down. I see the fire ignite in the back of its throat, its jaws open impossibly wide. _I'm going to die._ I am so certain.

Then Hajuk comes from nowhere leaping in front of me with all the fury of a wolverine. He bends a shield of earth in front of us and pushes me back with enough force to lift me off my feet. The dragon lets loose its flame and it jets forward, striking the earth shield just as Hajuk sends it forward. The impact sends the fire wrapping around the stone, engulfing Hajuk in its embrace. The stone smashes into its target, shooting the dragon from the sky. It falls somewhere out of sight but I don't care. Hajuk is on fire.

I reach for my water but it fell from me when Hajuk pushed me aside. I reach for whatever I can find and stream it to him which works. The flames whoosh out and steam and smoke rise from him. Except it's much too late. The fire has already touched him, has burned his clothes and torn across his body. He is so red, his skin so shiny and bubbling. I don't understand how he could still be standing. As if he senses my confusion he collapses on the ground.

I rush to him, wanting to hold him close to me but knowing I can't possibly. He is already screaming in agony, his skin a charred and molten mess. I reach desperately for whatever water I can find, even the tears streaming from my face, and cover him with it, using whatever healing techniques I could remember to help him. It does what it can which isn't much against the damage wrought by a dragon's fire. He passes out from the pain and I use the opportunity to move him. As I set him down on our bed some of his skin comes off on my hand and I recoil in horror.

He's going to die. I think, more sure of it than I was about myself before. I have to do something... A memory I had locked away slaps me in the face. The man whose blood I had stolen stares at me, daring me to try what I am about to do. Blood had saved me, all those years ago. Maybe it could save him. I reach into his body, feel the flow of his blood like a tiny current. I'll have to take some of his to start the exchange. The only other way is to wound myself and I can't afford to make a mistake through loss of blood. As gently as possible I draw it from him. It's hard to isolate the path. He has so many wounds to draw from. His threads connect with my skin and slither their way up into my eyes, my nose, my mouth. I let them flow into me, creating the bridge where I would then let it draw out my own blood. Even now it happens as I can feel it seeping from me, flowing up the threads to connect with Hajuk's mangled body.

I do this for hours, keeping him barely alive as he moans with shuddering breaths, hoping against hope to somehow heal him but he never gets any better. At last I realize I only prolong his agony this way. I look into his eyes for the last time. There is nothing in them of the Hajuk I know, just empty voids filled with pain. So I stop the flow of blood between us.

“I love you.” I tell him, my vision blurring with tears. “I should've said it so many times before. I'm sorry. I hope you can hear me.” I want to kiss him but he hardly even has lips anymore. I bend his blood, holding it from his brain and watch the life simply drift away from him. There is a long time after where my mind is darkness, where I can only stare blankly at the shell that was this man I knew. This man who means so much to me. This man who is now dead.

It takes days for me to bury him. Not because the work is especially tough. There are plenty of loose stones to make a cairn. I find them one by one, placing them around his body wrapped in the blankets we'd shared. It's better for him to have them. I don't think I could use them anymore. It's long slow work but bit by bit the wall rises up around him, at last encasing him in a jumbled mound. Still, something about it when finished isn't right. I fiddle with it, switching stones this way and that. It takes me three days to realize it will never be right. Not unless Hajuk climbs out of the rubble and shoots one of those confident grins at me again. I realize that's what's keeping me here. That I have this insane hope that he will rise from the dead whole and back to me somehow.

Back to bed and my despair. He's not there to hold me anymore and I don't have blankets to keep me warm. But it's okay. The cold helps me to feel numb even with the tears streaming unchecked down the sides of my face. A tiny voice asks when last I'd eaten. I ignore it cause it doesn't really matter.

I wake up sick, feverish. Have been for hours at least. Maybe days. Who keeps track anymore?

 _This is it..._ I think. I'm at a crossroads with my body. It's been days without food or water and now an illness is taking over me. Something about it feels familiar, in the way the chills it gives me pierces me to my bones. I have to make a decision now. To get up or to stay here in bed till the inevitable comes. To live or to die. If I wait any longer I'll be too weak to rise and the decision would be made for me.

 _So choose..._ There's so many reasons to stay. Despite my grief this house has been the happiest place I've ever lived. Even if it makes my heart ache I love it. It would be so easy to indulge in that pain, wound myself with memory till sickness and thirst take me. I can't imagine I'll ever be happier for the rest of my life. Knowing that... Knowing what I've lost... Knowing what life more than likely holds for someone like me now... Is there any point?

I don't have a definite answer and that at last is what convinces me. Death is so final. Miserable or not I do not like the idea of purposefully limiting my options. Knowing that, the choice is already made.

I reach out for the spring. It's much easier to grasp ever since Hajuk made a makeshift aqueduct. For years we had enjoyed the sound of it bubbling outside of our house as it lulled us to sleep. Yet another joy that has become an open wound to me.

Still the water feels... off... Sluggish and heavy... As if it were stubbornly fighting me. I'd never felt water behave like this before. It takes effort but I pull a stream of it to my lips, letting it slowly flow down my throat till I am satiated. By then I'm too exhausted to do anything but let the stream collapse. I pass out before my confusion about my bending can set in properly.

I wake up still sick but better. At least in body. I'm not particularly hungry but I know I should eat. I groan as I sit up from the bed, my stomach cramping. My fingers and toes are almost numb and stiff. It takes a while to warm them up enough to get up. I stumble weakly to the stores we had been gathering for the upcoming winter. We had been saving for two so there was plenty to last me through. I go for the salted meat, figuring if I was eating for efficiency's sake I should go for substance. Eating it feels mechanical. I have to consciously make myself chew, feeling no satisfaction in the salty savor of the meat. Is this to be my life from now on? I wonder if I had made the right choice in trying to survive. I suppose it isn't too late...

_No... not yet..._

Winter is quiet. My fever breaks yet I hardly leave the house for more than wood for the fire. I live in the common area, filthy with piles of ash from the hearth and the refuse I was collecting. I'd stopped cleaning months ago. I can't bring myself to return to the bedroom. It feels too close to death.

The house has been buried in snow for days now. In years past this was easy enough for me to deal with. Waterbending has its perks. But ever since the fever my bending has not recovered. I thought it was because I was sick but I still can't control water the same way as before. It fights me at every turn, becoming slippery as an octopus. The more I try to grab hold of it the more it slips away. It's a chore just to get the water I need to survive. Snow proves nearly impossible. But the wood pile is running low. I'll need to get more soon or freeze to death.

I open the front door to a wall of snow. Taking a deep breath I try my best to concentrate, to sense the water in the crystallized formations in front of me. It used to be so easy, like listening to music and letting it provoke me into dance. Now I find myself... distracted when doing this. As if something else were calling to my senses. I shake my head and push myself to focus, feeling the water all around me. Then I push.

Instead of melting in an elegant whirlpool to create a ramped exit like I envisioned I saw as the snow compressed itself, becoming an impenetrable wall of ice. Considering how hard I was trying I wouldn't be surprised if I had done this up to the surface. I had now imprisoned myself. Furious I stamp my foot and gasp when a piece of earth shoots up from the ground, hovering in front of my face like an inquisitive friend. I reach out to touch it and it falls back down, narrowly missing my foot.

In my grief I am almost mad, and for a moment I think the impossible has happened. That Hajuk has come back to me and this is his way of telling me. I claw desperately at the ice with my fingers, trying my best to reach out with my bending but finding it impossible to connect. I'm trapped and with it comes reality.

_Hajuk isn't alive, remember? You left him in a bloody parcel under a mound higher up the hill. He's been out there for months in the cold without food or water. There is no doubt. He's dead._

I stare at the rock and the hollow left behind where it had popped out of the ground. It's real. It happened. Or at the very least the delusion is persistent and incredibly detailed. I don't think my imagination is developed enough to maintain it.

The only other explanation is just as impossible. Unheard of even. It wasn't common but there had been marriages arranged for hundreds of years between different benders in the hopes to produce what I am beginning to suspect I have become. None had succeeded. The rule has always been that only one element can claim you. Any more is simply beyond human capability. And yet...

I think about how my connection with water seems so fuzzy lately, as if something were interfering with my senses. Ever since my fever something has been different. The stone could not have moved itself. I reach out, trying to sense it lying on its side the same way I would feel pools of water or the intricate latticework it forms as ice and mist.

I try for hours but it simply does not work. If I can really bend earth I seemingly cannot sense it in the same way as water. My mind races to find some sort of explanation but there's not enough there to bring it all together. Frustration balls up in my gut, weighing me down. The walls around me seem to press in close and I feel as if I cannot breathe. It doesn't matter if I cannot sense it. It doesn't matter if by trying I might kill myself. I have to get out of here.

I remember a move Hajuk did once, making a little earthquake. He'd usually do it as a prank to scare me. He had this stance to it, wide and low. He said it felt like letting out an enormous fart. Charming man, I know.

So I try to emulate the stance as best I remember, feeling ridiculous with my ass hanging out. I try to picture what he means about the feeling but I'm too embarrassed to focus. It takes far too long for me to stop laughing at myself. Finally I manage to calm down enough to concentrate a little. I reach out and imagine a sort of force erupting from my beneath my ass and thighs. I almost lose it again. It feels absurd. Even more so when it seems to work.

It's barely perceptible, so soft that I wonder if I'm imagining it, but it feels as if the whole house were humming ever so slightly. I push harder, trying my best to focus on not shitting myself. The humming becomes stronger, growing into a rumble. I groan as I apply more pressure, the groan growing into a roar as I feel the whole hill shake. There are a series of sharp, loud snaps as the ice shell cracks apart. Then the sound of a great tidal wave as the pieces fall into a pile all around the house. I take in a deep shuddering breath and the shaking slowly subsides to stillness. When an actual fart pops out of me I collapse to the ground in laughter. I can't believe that actually worked.

There is no doubt now. I'm an earthbender. But how? Had I been all along and simply not known it? I don't see how. My mother and father were both waterbenders from the Northern Water Tribe. At least that was what I was told. Even if I were lied to could I really be the exception the world had been trying to produce for hundreds of years? And if so then why lie? Besides I think I would've noticed it before this long. No, something has changed.

It's obvious when I finally come upon the answer. The blood. I had shared my blood with Hajuk. But why would that be different from having a child? Is not a child's blood simply a mixture of its parents'? It doesn't make sense. Still, it's the only answer I've got.

My giddiness from before collapses into sobbing as I accept my revelation. Not only was I not saving his life by sharing our blood... I stole something from him in his dying moments. Was there more to his agony than the burns when I had been keeping him alive?

It's not fair. A thought I find odd about the fact that I'm still alive. But there it is. I shouldn't be alive. I didn't earn it through cleverness or strength or integrity of will. It just happened. Without Hajuk I would have been burned myself, maybe even eaten by that flying serpent.

 _No... that's not right._ I owe him so much more than just saving my life by a terrifying monster. He'd given me life long before in the little kindnesses that allowed me to live. Without him I would have died long before.

And now he is dead and I endure somehow. If it weren't so devastating I would laugh. It was always he who had the plans about the future. He who knew how to build a life. To survive. Without him I am sure to wither and waste. The dragon may not have killed me but by taking him it might as well have. It's a miracle I'm still alive now, due mostly to my stubbornness. I do not accept defeat easily, even in despair. Still, a petty will to live is nothing without a plan.

Well, I need wood to maintain my fire. It's something at least. With the ice broken I am able to dig my way out of the house. It isn't long before I find trees dry and dead, not simply asleep during winter. I decide to test out my waterbending now that I've gotten a grip on sensing earth. It's wonderful when I sense the water so clearly at last, like meeting with an old friend. I reach out into the snow and dissolve it, making small pools of water. Then I fling them up into the old dead tree, slicing it up into bundles of wood. It isn't long before I have plenty to last me. I form a sled of ice, still relishing my renewed connection to water as I carry the chopped wood back home.

Winter passes. I use the time to test my earthbending. Anything to distract myself. It's very clumsy at first. I constantly have to remember that earth is a solid element. That it takes more than a gentle coax to get moving. And when you finally manage to get it moving it does not want to stop. I learn that the hard way when I manage to finally pull a good sized chunk of earth from the ground. It feels great at first except I must have put too much effort into it because it shoots straight into the ceiling. It's more condensed dirt than rock so all it does is crack the ceiling before breaking apart. One of the thankfully smaller pieces lands on my foot. It takes a week before my limp goes away.

I decide to hold off on the manipulation of earth until I get a better handle on sensing it. I don't have a problem feeling it, it's just so... rigid and unresponsive. With water I get the sense of its flow and am able to tap into the innate energy to stream it how I desire. Even still water responds like spark to oil when you go to move it, as if it wants to flow and dance with you.

But earth... It's just there. I feel nothing but pieces of it piled on each other, each so similar and dull it's hard to differentiate one from another. So while yes I can sense the vast amount of earth all around me I cannot for the life of me tell up from down. I try to reach out more pointedly but then a wall in the opposite direction from where I was focusing on cracks so that stops that. How the hell did Hajuk do this?

 _Stop saying his name._ I reprimand myself as my eyes tear up. I'm so damn sick of crying.

Something sort of pings against my senses, pealing like a tiny bell. A few actually... no make that dozens... What is that? I make my way to what I hope is in the direction of them. The pinging is getting louder at least, if loud is the word for it. It's hard to describe. Somewhere between a noise and a physical sensation and yet neither at the same time. I'm drawn to a closet I realize I've never really gone into before. Ha-... no... He was the one who used it not me.

I take a shuddering breath as I place my hand on the handle.

 _You'll be fine just as long as you don't use his name._ I tell myself before I open it. When I see what's inside I laugh a little, the sound hollow even to my ears. I'd half expected some sort of shrine, a detailed map of... his life... Our life in crafts and paintings and clothes.

Instead I find boxes. The far more reasonable expectation. He barely even used the closet himself. I try to reign in my disappointment even as I feel relief. Either way whatever it is that's causing this fuss seems to be in here or else my earth senses are entirely off. Not that it wouldn't surprise me.

I rummage through the boxes, picking them up and feeling them out before putting them aside. Finally I pick the right one, its contents jangling like discordant chimes. I tear it open finding a collection of things I don't recognize. There's a cloth, the softest I'd ever felt and a red so dark it's almost black. It smells like peppermint. Wrapped inside is a set of carved wooden figures, some people, some animals. I have no idea what they're for. I hold a rough hewn platypus bear, rubbing my thumb over its grains and edges, wondering what it meant to... him. There are a couple of old books. Novels I've never heard of before. I didn't even take him for much of a reader. At the bottom is a wooden lockbox and an old drawstring sack that looks familiar. I pick it up and I remember what it is and know that I've found what I've been looking for.

It was his. His stupid, pointless sack of rocks he had carried around with him around the world. He would play with them for hours, juggling them around and holding them to his forehead, laughing as if enjoying a private joke I could never understand. He had loved them. I wonder when he had decided to put them away. It seemed significant and yet I had never noticed. I pull it out, not even bothering to reorder things as I make my way back to the living room.

One by one I set each rock in front of me, taking a moment to hold it in my hand before adding it to the set. There are rough, coarse rocks that feel and look like rust. Others are smooth and glassy, dark as midnight. Still others are crystals, green and blue and red. The most curious ones are those that didn't seem to have any sort of interesting feature. They are just rocks. None seem to be worth much value, though I admit I am far from a stone appraiser. And yet each has such... personality to it. They sort of... sing together, each voice wanting to drown the other out in discordant symphony. It is far from pleasant. I try to get a sense of each but it is difficult to focus on one. Each time I try the others seem to scream all the harder for my attention.

It takes a few days to sort out the sensory mess. I leave the configuration in the living room and sleep to the notes of their song crashing together. There is something oddly soothing about it. Most of my time is spent fiddling with them, changing the pattern to see if anything would make more sense. The “song” would change slightly but hardly becomes less discordant.

_What am I missing?_

I pick up one of the average looking ones. A smooth river stone with pale stripes cutting across it. I know it's crying out to me. I can even almost hear it but there's just too much interference. Even when I bring the others out of the house I can't isolate it. It makes no sense. Out of frustration I chuck it against a wall, wincing as it lets out a sort of sharp whine. A chill runs down my spine but after I shudder I notice I can feel the river stone distinctly now. The impact had sort of... activated it somehow and allowed it to break through the cacophony. It's effortless for me to reach out and grab it with my bending to get it to float obediently to my hand.

 _So that's it._ I chuckle a little when I realize that the key to earthbending is pretty much beating it into submission. I confirm my theory by tossing the other ones, at least those that didn't seem too fragile. Each time they strike something I am able to sense them, able to manipulate them how I want. I hone in on the crystals by process of elimination, able to recognize the other voices of the rocks now. I even take to juggling them, realizing that when I set certain ones in motion together they make a sort of harmony.

A part of me wishes he had told me about this but then again I probably wouldn't have understood. How could you explain color to a blind man? Still, it hurts a little that he didn't try. I wonder what else he kept from me and my mind snaps to the lockbox I had found with the sack. I go back to the closet and there it is, still exposed after I had rifled through everything. It's funny how I had forgotten it as I was enamored with the stones. Now it was an unbearable curiosity.

What would he have that was so important he'd keep it locked away in here? Why'd he feel like he had to hide it from me? I find it isn't very heavy in my hands. Probably not money. Something sentimental? Something small and valuable? What could it be?

I don't find a key even when I go through all the boxes full of even stranger things. There's a decent set of woman's clothing that is roughly his size. A collection of liquors in strange bottles that only have the barest remnants left in them. They smell pungent. A few knives. A couple board games I'd never heard of before and even a dreamcatcher woven with crystals and hung with feathers. Why wouldn't he have brought that out? It would've looked nice in the bedroom... No key though.

I go back to the lockbox. It wouldn't be hard to break open, especially now that I can earthbend. Might smash whatever is inside though. Not something I want to do to the dead man I loved. I place it on the table and stare at it for hours, contemplating what it could be. Wondering if it is right for me to find out. If my love for him entitles me to his secrets. The more I think the more I realize I didn't know the man at all.

 _No... that isn't true._ I knew him. His face, his moods, his intentions. I knew the limits of his body and the love in his heart. It's just strange not knowing many details of his past life. He was a sailor yes and and earthbender for sure. And... what? He would rarely say. And why would he? It wasn't like I was an open book. I never even told him why I left the South Pole. He never once asked. We both had our secrets from each other.

All right then. I make my decision about the box. Since I could not tell him my secrets he should be able to keep his own. I look up and realize the fire has died for the first time in weeks. Ash now covers the ground in an even layer, clumping up in the corners of the room. I also realize that the air is no longer bitter cold. Has spring come already?

 _It's time then..._ I hadn't realized I had been waiting the whole winter, avoiding what must be done. I find I can no longer stand this filthy, ash ridden hole. So I take the lockbox and make my way towards the place I had been avoiding since I had built it.

Hajuk's cairn is pristine, each stone in its place. I stamp my foot and reach out with my mind, sensing the rough, granular texture that makes up the pieces of earth that are humming from my foot's impact. It's hard to imagine I had ever mistaken it for water before. There are so many pieces but if I close my eyes I can feel them all. And like layers in an onion I peel them away, revealing the rotten core inside.

I fall to my knees when I see him. Nothing but bones wrapped in ragged cloth. The sockets where his eyes used to be stare straight at me.

“You stupid goddamn bastard.” I say, tears streaming down my face. “You could've just bent a wall over us. Shielded us from the flames. But no... You had to be the hero. Had to take down a fucking dragon.”

I look up at the stars and they smear across my vision. I can't bear to look at him but I must and the sight of his wretched skull sends me quavering. I manage to place the lockbox inside before I lose my grip on the floating rocks and they cascade down in a steady stream of cracks and pops. I see one snap his arm, another crash into his ribs. A wordless scream erupts from my lips. It’s like I’m killing him all over again. I manage to hold on to the rest, stopping one from crashing into his skull and another from breaking open the box. A part of me wonders if on some level I had lost my grip on purpose. I do my best to pile the rocks carefully over him again but I can’t stop shaking. Just as I would get a neat pile going I would twitch and it would fall apart. It isn’t until dawn starts breaking that I manage to get it to hold together again.

“I can’t stay.” I only realize it as the words come pouring out of my mouth. “I’m sorry but I can’t. I’ll die, sure as sunrise…” Orange light filters into the sky, shining through clouds like golden fire. I watch as the sun creeps up, starting from a narrow bright line that slowly oozes up until it becomes a white hot disc. “I’ll see you when my time comes.”

I walk away from the cairn, having no thoughts in my head for fear they’d tear me apart. I'm back at the house though I don't remember going inside. I find a mirror and glare at myself. The face that glares back at me is familiar, but not the one I had been wearing these past years. I'd kept it shaved then, my hair short cropped. It just seemed to make the daily chores easier somehow. Now I sport a short, unkempt beard and my hair is getting long. How it used to be when I was on my own and all I had to cut my hair was my waterbending. Now that's a razor you don't want to cut yourself with... There's more grey in my hair than back then, hell even more than the day I had cut myself shaving one winter ago... a lifetime ago... And so it's come full circle. I am back again where I have nothing.

_Well... might as well make it official..._

I place myself roughly in the center of the house, getting in a low stance while I take a deep breath. With a stamp of my foot I can sense the shell of earth around me. My home no longer. I didn't want anyone to come by and use this place. It was Hajuk's and should remain that way as long as possible. So I reach out and start to tear the place down.

I start with the roof, popping it off the top of the house and tearing it to pieces before flinging them in all directions. Then the real fun begins. I blast out walls, crack rooms in half and shove them down the hill. It is a vicious, chaotic dance, so unlike the one that had built it years ago. I keep going till nothing is left but the hole where the foundation used to be. I stand panting, covered in sweat as the cold night air gives me chills. Utterly exhausted I collapse to the ground and pass out.


	3. Air

The morning sun nudges me from sleep and it's almost pleasant as I lay there in this hole, convinced for a second I am dead and waiting to be buried. I feel the deep throb of my muscles aching from head to toe and realize I must be still alive. It would seem like earthbending takes a lot out of you. No matter. I feel rested enough to leave and take the pack of supplies I had set aside before hoisting myself out of my hole. I don't even bother to look up at the cairn as I leave the place that had served as my home longer than any had in my life before.

Down the hill I go with no plan in mind but to get away. My feet plot their own course, tracing steps through the winding paths that weave through the stone spires all around. Back and forth I wander in and out of shadows and dissipating mists, only vaguely aware that I am steadily going down. I'm so out of it it feels like I appear suddenly in the middle of town.

I had almost forgotten about it. Even before the dragon came I had hardly visited the place. I don't even know its name. Despite it being years without a word I couldn't believe the Water Tribe wasn't looking for me. They took murder very seriously, especially if it was through the use of waterbending. Something of a necessity when life depended on everyone trusting one another and you were at the mercy of waterbenders. The arctic was no place to fool around in. I don't plan to stay in town long.

I have some supplies but I could always use more. Since I have no idea where I am going it's hard to gauge just how much I'll need or exactly what. So to cover all bases I get tools for all sorts of activities, rope and hooks and a new dagger shaved down from a single piece of metal. Good craftsmanship. Very well balanced. I figure at the very least I would try to rock climb. Hajuk had gotten me into the sport and the stone spires were fun challenges once I got over the height problem. I'm curious to see how the experience will change now that I can earthbend.

With my supplies more or less set I decide to head to the pub to gather news. It's been years since I had gone out into the world. It'll help to get an idea as to what's been going on. There isn't much to listen to as far as local news goes. With scant few valuable resources and little fertile land available the southern Air Nomad lands are pretty much left alone by outsiders. There are those who come to visit the temple but outside of that the world seems to have little interest in anything else they have on offer. It's so safely mundane that I consider staying, wondering if I can make some sort of salvageable hut out of the ruins of our old home. That is, until others begin to talk.

“Been hearing about trouble stirring in the Water Tribe.” My ears perk up. This is what I was waiting for. News of home.

“That's their business. None of our concern.” Someone counters.

“They is neighbors ain't they?” The first one argues. “Always wise to keep an eye on neighbors.”

“Oy!” Someone else chimes in. “You been spying on me then, Nafu?”

“Of course!” Nafu admits proudly. “Not that it's worth it. So little happens over there it makes a man wonder why you bothered to get yourself a wife! You don't seem to know what to do with her!”

“Oh I know plenty, you twisted fuck!” The other man growls.

“Odd you saying that. A 'twisted fuck' was exactly what your wife asked of me. I, being a man of honor, declined of course.” Nafu dodges the empty clay mug that's lobbed at his head and it crashes to pieces against the wall. He pops immediately back up with a gleeful grin on his face. “Oh would you just give it to her already for all our sakes? I know she's starting to sag but you locked yourself in there so that's no one's problem but your own. If she's climbing up my tree she's got to be desperate. A husband has duties to perform you know!”

“I give it to her plenty!” The other man insists. His face is beet red. He is very drunk.

“Then put your money where your mouth is! Or rather your-!”

“Shut your filthy mug before I shut it for you!” The other man cuts through Nafu's ongoing dialogue. Chatty one he is. Probably why he makes a good barkeep.

“How you going to do that?” Nafu teases. “You've already thrown your mug and I've got all the rest!”

The beet-faced man wickers like a horse and wobbles his way out of the bar muttering obscenities under his breath. The pub is filled to the brim with raucous laughter.

“Rather harsh on the man don't you think?” I observe to Nafu as he fills my drink. I sip at it slowly, not wanting to lose my head. Without Hajuk I feel vulnerable again and all my old paranoia resurfaces.

“You kidding me?” Nafu laughs. “It's the only way I can get him to stop drinking long enough to attend to his wife.”

“You mean he's actually going to...?” I ask, incredulous.

“Oh absolutely.” Nafu confirms happily. “The man is so hammered that by the time he gets home all he'll remember about this conversation is 'fuck' and 'wife'. He fills in the gaps and they have at it. All part of the plan.” 

“Plan?” I can't help myself. I have to ask about this.

“Oh I wasn't lying when I said she came to me. Poor thing.” Nafu looks genuinely sympathetic. “Just about the proposition part. She loves the ass, don't ask me why. He neglects her and spends all their money drinking. So she gets it in her head that I should be able to goad him into his husbandly duties. I of course tell her she's mad but she insists and well obviously it works for whatever reason. Been doing it every other week for that past... oh... two years now. Wow, has it been that long?”

“Why do you keep doing it?” I'm absolutely baffled at this point.

“Trust me, this town is not big enough for the problems those two cause when they're not having sex on the regular.” Nafu gives me a very serious look and then goes to serve some other patrons. After I get over my bewilderment of the local gossip I remember why I had started listening to the conversation in the first place.

“You mentioned something about trouble with the Water Tribe?” I offer as he passes by me again.

“Oh, right!” He stops mid delivery of his drinks, inciting frustrated calls from his patrons. Nafu doesn't seem to hear them. “Seems like their healers are on a sort of strike. The Tribes have voted to outlaw blood manipulation. Looks like one of their own got a little too good at it. Sucked the blood right out of a man.”

_Me... He's talking about me..._

“That was fine until others decided to try their hand. That's when the Tribes decided, afraid the knowledge was too dangerous. But the healing order didn't take too kindly to that.”

 _They wouldn't._ I figured. Blood manipulation is a core pillar of healing. It had saved my life more than once. Without it many of their techniques will be much less effective. People will die that they could save.

“They decided if the Tribes were not interested in their wisdom then they should be just fine without their services. Now there's talk of sending soldiers to make them available. I'm not sure how exactly they plan on doing that but it's sure to end badly.”

I don't understand how he makes all that sound so jovial. He moves on and sets his drinks down to the waiting patrons who down them almost immediately and then ask for another. Nafu takes his time in indulging them.

I nurse the drink for over an hour in silence, mulling this over. It's unreal learning about the consequences of my biggest mistake. How could others be willing to repeat it? Then again I had done it again myself, desperate to save someone I loved. Obviously I wasn't the only one willing to cross that line. It's not my fault. I do not make the choices for these people. But I had opened the door and because of it people are dying.

I definitely can't stay here. If the Tribes are so worried about creating more monsters such as myself they must be still looking for me. It's time to move on. I pay for my drinks and go, not stopping to look behind me as I leave town. I still don't know its name and somehow that seems fitting.

My feet continue to jot their own course, cutting a path that weaves up into a cluster of mountains I had never explored before. This area is more sheer and harsh compared to the rest of the island. I never felt comfortable giving it a shot until today. Soon I find a spire that catches my eye. It stretches up till it pierces the clouds above like a great spear. Even though I had gotten the tools I find that when I go to try it that I do not want to use them. I place my hand against the stone column. Slapping it I feel it thrum, coming to life underneath my fingers. I have no doubt I can conquer this.

As I shoulder my pack I feel for my first handholds. It's been a while so it takes some getting used to but as my senses sink into the rock, feeling out every crevice, every lip, I find myself going at an incredible rhythm. My hands and feet simply know where to go, no need to pause and consider. Each time I grasp a new hold I can feel the rest of the way open up above me. It's almost as if the rock itself were encouraging me, pushing me upward as I climb. I pass the cloud line in no time, making sure to focus on my breathing as I do so. The air becomes thin at this height. Still I keep along at a steady pace till I reach the pinnacle.

The sun is setting, spilling a golden light that pools across the blanket of clouds. As I hold myself at the spear's tip I feel the wind pick up, the blanket starting to tatter as a great hole opens up below me. Light shimmers across a great lake that looks so bright and clear and beautiful that I find myself irresistibly drawn to it.

Taking in a breath I smack the tip of the spear before reaching down, tearing it off and hurling it towards the lake with me along for the ride. I hurtle through the air like an arrow, straight and true and impossibly fast. My eyes tear up but even so I can see that I'm going to hit the water at the wrong angle. So I leap from my rocky mount and fall helplessly in the air, reaching out desperately to the great lake of water becoming ever bigger below me. I grip it with my arm fully extended and pull, making a pillar rise from the lake to catch me like a child with a ball. I land into it, windmilling my arms as I do so to move the water with me as I crash so as to cushion my fall. The pillar carries me down as it collapses and I fall into the lake with a loud roar in my ears.

I bend my way to the surface, shooting out to land on a raft of ice I make as I fall back down. Rooting myself to the ice I start to sweep the water behind me like I were swimming. I surf through the water with the wind blowing in my face and for the briefest of moments I forget my misery. It isn't long until I meet the shore and I let the raft melt. I collapse on the grass and wait for nothing in particular. Simply watch the clouds tear apart and form together again like an old worn tapestry trying to repair itself.

After hours of this I stand up to continue wherever it is I am headed. The wind picks up again but there is something different to it this time. Something that feels like it's calling to me, inviting me to come along with it. Having no other plans I decide to indulge, getting pushed and pulled by the indecisive whim of the winds. Still, it is definitely leading me somewhere. The closer I get to it the more the wind seems to pick up till at last I enter a shallow valley that seems to be the center of the storm. Turning a corner I stumble upon a great smooth bowl carved into the floor of the valley surrounded by natural walls of stone. There is a group of people dancing in a circle at its edge surrounding a single woman at their center who appears to be dancing with a large leaf. There is no sound but the gentle rasp of wind buffeting stone.

I watch as they weave through their motions, realizing that they aren't just dancing. It was they who are the source of the strong winds, each coming together to bend their currents into an elegant storm. I feel transported to another world as the circle of people become a dome. Benders leap into the air in graceful arcs, seeming to attack the woman in the center with their bending. Her role apparently is to protect the leaf from her attackers, casting a net of air to counteract the exquisite torment of their storm. She is doing quite well actually, the leaf mostly keeping still except in the moments where she loses her equilibrium and the illusion of control is properly crushed. Then it spins wildly and she has to chase it and bring it back to the center, make it calm once more.

At last one of the airbenders spots me and breaks away from the group, hopping ten feet in the air with each step with glee. He makes it to me in no time, extending his hand in welcome. I take it and awkwardly shake it, gripping his hand a little too early so that I am mostly holding his fingers.

“We saw you on that spire earlier. Amazing what you managed to do when the thing fell. Couldn't believe how fast you were going.” He clasps me on the shoulder and I try not to show my discomfort. “You almost looked like an airbender yourself. It's why we started the ritual.”

“What kind of ritual is this?” The dance is getting more elaborate, more frantic. The woman in the center is holding onto her semblance of control but only just barely.

“It's a summoning of sorts.” He explains. “We call the winds to us and merge them together in a dance. It symbolizes entropy. The one who takes up the center is challenged to create order among the chaos. The lesson teaches us that peace and order are merely the product of a balance of forces moving without a clear pattern. We must ride those forces and summon the calm ourselves or else lose everything to the chaos.” I watch as the woman struggles and fails to keep control of the leaf. It spins away and slaps onto the face of one of her fellow airbenders, knocking him to the ground. The rest of the group dissolves into laughter. “Then again that remains inevitable.”

“So how exactly is it a summoning?” I ask.

“We summon the wind to inspire a state of mind and attract those who share a connection to that state. You are one such.” He bows to me.”We welcome you.”

“Are you from the Southern Temple?”

“Some of us once, yes.” There is a sly glint in his eye.

“But not anymore.” I surmise aloud.

“That is the implication.” He confirms. I find the way he gets to a point a little irritating, as if he were playing for an audience I can't see. “We have found the teachings of the monks to be a little... restrictive. For a dogma based on freeing oneself they are awfully concerned with rules. We wish to teach the true spirit of freedom.”

I am intrigued by this. I have never heard of a group of Air Nomads that weren't associated with the teachings of the Temples.

“Come.” He invites. “I will show you.”

The ritual has ended but the dance has only begun. My host takes me by the wrist and drags me with him before I can protest. Then, without the slightest hesitation, he hurls me a good fifteen feet in the air, using currents of wind to spin me as I fly. A part of me knows I should be terrified, that they might just be trying to kill me. But I find myself oddly detached from... myself. Someone catches me by the wrists midair and spins me a few times before passing me off to my next partner. Again and again I am tossed like a child yet I can't help but feel giddy and light. Like a feather favored by the wind floating in a beautiful ballet. There are tears in my eyes by the time they are done and for once it's from laughter. It's the best I've felt in months.

Later we sit around a campfire watching the stars make their lumbering journey across the inky black sky. Some of the benders play music while the air blows in gentle waves across us, briny from the sea. It's been so long since I thought about the ocean, the lands beyond. A part of me knows I should get going but I figure a few days can't hurt. These are the first people since Hajuk who make me feel alive. It's hard to let that go.

I notice the woman who had been at the center of the ritual before. From a distance I had assumed her hair had been pinned up but in up close I realize that actually it's cut very short. She stares unblinking at the fire in front of her, flames reflecting in her grey-green eyes.

“So you like Umani do you?” My host nudges me. His name is... Brunal... I think. We've been drinking hot rice wine. It burns in a satisfying way as it makes its way to my stomach but it is quite strong. Names aren't the only thing I'm having trouble remembering. “Haven't seen her seem interested in anything from either sex. Still, doesn't stop me from wondering what she'd be like. The strong, silent types tend to surprise you in bed. I wish you luck!”

With a hearty laugh he pushes me towards her and I can't help but stumble helplessly in that direction. Thankfully I get a hold of my momentum before I come crashing into her, or even worse the fire. She looks up at me with dubious appraisal.

“Brunal sent you I see.” She accuses. “He likes sending men to me. Sets me up as a sexual conquest. So what do you think of your chances?”

Her expression and tone has not changed. She speaks to me without inflection, so matter of factly it's maddening simply because by her words she cannot possibly be so calm. It's hard to meet her eyes. There is a cutting intensity to them. But I make a point to do so. She blinks slowly like a sleepy owl, looking slightly less than human.

“I'm not looking for anything like that.” I assure her. “I spent the last few years completely upending my sex life and now I'm back to square one. It's high time for a break.”

“I've been on a break for six years.” She informs me.

“By choice?” I tease. Her eyes narrow fractionally yet it sends a shock through me.

“Yes.” There's disdain in her voice I simply cannot hear it. “Haven't come across anyone that interests me and I have no plans to waste my time with anyone who doesn't.”

“I can respect that.” I hold up my cup to her and she produces one of her own. We drink together, our eyes never leaving the other's. I wonder if mine are as full of suspicion as hers.

“So what exactly brought you to us?” She interrogates. “We are a bit off the beaten path.”

Maybe it's the rice wine but I don't have the strength to tell anything but the truth.

“I lost someone close to me.” I shudder as I suppress a sob. Yeah... probably should take a break with the rice wine. “I just needed to get away. I had no idea you all were here.”

“Well we're not. At least not all the time.” She tells me. “We migrate like birds, keeping to the good weather as it travels across the world during changing seasons. Once it starts getting too hot here we'll move on to the next place.”

“It's not a bad way to live.” I mean it when I say it. Never having to put roots down, always moving on to paradise after paradise, always something new to see across the horizon.

“Brunal calls it freedom.” Umani sounds less than convinced. “But it gets kind of lonely... being so disconnected. It feels like we could disappear and the world wouldn't even notice...” Her eyes drift back towards the fire. “But we have each other. Most of the time that's enough.”

She seems to snap out of her trance.

“I'm sorry, I keep babbling on.” She forces on a smile which makes her even more uncomfortable to interact with. “I haven't even asked you your name.”

“Manu.” I tell her and watch her immediately forget it. She only had asked to be polite and I am getting the sense she is trying to end the conversation.

“It's good to meet you.” She says and oddly enough I believe her. Without another word she is gone, dissolving out of sight among the revelers. An arm makes its way across my shoulders.

“You strike out?” Brunal asks. “Don't feel bad. No one I've seen go after her has cracked that nut.”

“She's very...” I can't decide which word I want to use. Strange? Insane? Rude?

“Intense?” Brunal offers.

“Yes.” I agree. “Very much that.”

“She just recently joined us from the Southern Temple. We were bartering with our temple brethren about a month back when she decides to follow us.” Brunal takes a deep swig of wine and offers me some. I decline. “She is not the friendly type. I don't know if she'll come with us when we move on or return to the Temple.”

He shrugs and continues in his celebration, badly singing along to the chorus of instruments. I spend the rest of the night watching them all together. So exuberant and full of life. It brings a sad smile to my face before sleep takes me.

 

_There are three of us sitting in chairs forming a triangle at the center of a featureless grey room. A tower actually. There is a circular wall surrounding us, stretching up beyond the reach of torchlight. The two across from me are not showing their faces but I know who they are._

_Threads are connecting us. So many tiny threads spilling out from them and flowing into me. I try to tear them off but my hands pass through them, as if they were insubstantial. But no, the blood is real. It is me that is the figment, the shadow, the ghost._

_“Had enough already?” That would be Hajuk. “Seems a bit of a waste, no?”_

_I try to explain but I can't speak. Both figures laugh at my attempt._

_“You've plenty of life left to speak.” Hajuk reprimands me. “Just listen okay? You'll get it all. All the life I didn't get. It's only fair.” I want to tell him that I wanted to save him. That if I could I would give it all back. But it can't be given back, only taken away by something else. The threads thicken, becoming great, pulsating veins as the two figures wither before my eyes, collapsing at last into dust._

 

My eyes open to grey twilight as dawn creeps up slowly from the hills. For a moment I think I'm still stuck in that empty tower, that I'll never truly escape. But then the sun pops out and dispels the illusion, bringing red back into a desaturated world. The morning air is brisk and sweet and stirs the grass around me, the blades seeming to paint the dawn as it colors the sky blue and the clouds an orange cream and the plants green. I can hear the collective off-beat sighs of people sleeping around me. Part of me wishes the morning would stop coming, so that I can just lay here in this moment and never face the bleak reality that is quickly becoming my life. Here at least I can feign contentment as the wind rifles through my clothes, trying its best to caress my body.

But of course dawn emerges into day and people start to stir from their sleep. Some stand and stretch and then leap into the air, ready to take on the day however they plan to do so. Others make a slower go at it, lying down and enjoying breakfast or finding some chore or craft to attend to. One figure picks their way awkwardly through the late risers who are in various states of undress. It looks as if they take their freedom philosophy pretty seriously. The figure makes their way towards me until my bleary morning eyes bring them into focus.

 _Umani..._ I remember, forming the name silently with my lips. There is something very satisfying in the way the syllables makes my mouth feel. A sort of stretching of the palate. I wonder where she's going but it soon becomes clear that I am her destination.

“Do you hunt?” She questions, hands behind her back as she leans her hips forward and back, rocking on her feet from balls to toes.

“Good morning to you too.” I laugh.

“Right... Good morning...” She seems irritated with herself. Looks as if manners are a struggle for her. Would explain a lot. “Anyway do you?”

“What makes you think I do?” I ask.

“Well... you are a waterbender.” She muses. “Being from frozen wastelands I imagine you have to hunt for your food.” She has a point. I hardly even remember my first hunt. I was five, maybe? Six? Didn't do much more than swing my whalebone dagger at imaginary enemies but my father made sure that I watched him as he waited with his bow drawn for the perfect timing... the perfect shot. That arrow took down a seal, went right through his eye. Still one of the best shots I've ever seen someone pull off.

“Smart thinking.”

“I wouldn't be asking you except no one else seems to have clue.” She snorts in exasperation.

“Well aren't you all vegetarian?” I point out.

“Were.” She spits out. “But I thought the whole point of this... thing was to break with tradition. If we're going to be out here on our own I want to be able to hunt for my food.”

“So wait... you want me to take you out hunting?” I had never met an airbender before so there was little to compare to but she seemed to oddest one I'd ever heard of.

“Why not?” She narrows her eyes. “Should be easy enough. Just show me the ropes and I'll pick it up from there. I'm a quick study.” She stands preternaturally still, like a dog expecting a treat if they behave well enough. I don't know how she makes it so unnerving.

“So... now then?” I offer in an attempt to break the tension.

“Sure.” She exclaims, suddenly vibrant again. “Unless you want to eat sour, unripe berries all day.” I see people all around me struggling to down their breakfasts, many playing with the berries instead of eating them.

“Now it is then.” I give in. Umani claps her hands together softly but excitedly and waits for me to take lead. That's when I feel that my bladder is still full. “Well after I take care of some business first. Wait here.” I hop out of camp to find a spot to relieve myself and am midway through before I realize she had followed me.

“I wish I had a penis.” She says longingly behind me. I jump, nearly covering myself in piss in the process. I look over my shoulder to meet her eyes staring so intently at me. Completely unabashed. I position myself strategically as I continue, feeling like this is an especially long piss.

“You want to be a man?” I ask. The only thing I can think to say. I'm not very good at maintaining conversation with my manhood literally in hand.

“Not at all!” She looks genuinely repulsed by the idea. “All that hair and bulky muscle and having to engage in all that ridiculous bravado. No, I just want to pee standing up. Although I suppose I wouldn't mind finding out why you all like to stick it wherever you like.”

“Can we wait to talk till after I've finished and put everything away?” I plea to her.

“You don't have to be so shy.” Umani assures me. “At least it'll be easier if you get over it. Half the troupe tends to be naked at any one time. It's part of the reason why they follow the warm weather so religiously.” 

I finally finish and tuck myself away. “It's my second day among you. Might take a while before I'm ready to let it all hang out.”

“No rush.” Umani says. “At least, there's no pressure on my end. I'm not really into the whole... penises thing.”

“Wait...” I take a moment to try and sort out what she's saying but it's not connecting. “Now I'm really confused.”

“I appreciate the utility of a penis.” She explains. “But I'm not really... into them so to speak.”

“Ah, so you like women.” I surmise.

“Well... no.” Umani is officially making no sense at all. “I don't really like either. At least not in the way that other people seem to like each other.”

“No one good enough?”

“More like it's just not on my radar.” She shrugs. “You ready to hunt now?”

“Yes.” I say all too quickly. Anything to be done with whatever it was we were engaging in at the moment. It felt like the opposite of romance, where instead of charming each other we pummel each other with our idiosyncrasies. It is thoroughly uncomfortable.

We walk together off into the wilds. I try to sense signs of life around me but Umani just keeps... fidgeting all the time and it makes me lose my focus.

“First tip.” I turn around and put my hands on her shoulders. “Keep still. You'll never catch anything if they hear you coming.” Umani looks abashed and hugs herself but listens well enough for me to start looking for a trail.

“So the trick to hunting is finding your prey.” I lecture as I start to calm my mind. “Doesn't matter how good you are at taking them down if you can't find them to begin with.”

“The best way to do that is to sort of act as if you aren't looking for anything in particular.” I follow my own advice, sort of zoning out, fuzzing my mind to repress expectation.

“That doesn't make any sense.” Umani argues. “Shouldn't you be paying attention to details?”

“Yes.” I agree. “But you can never know which details are going to pop up. You have to keep yourself open to the possibilities.” As I say this I notice some grass that's bent the wrong way. I bend down to get a closer look. “Like grass that doesn't look quite right.”

“What is it?” Umani follows my lead, too close as always. For someone who wasn't interested in the physicality of the sexes she seemed awfully comfortable invading personal space.

“Too early to tell.” I admit. “Might even lead to a dead end. Still, it's big enough to be worth looking into.” I take my time to follow the path laid out without disturbing any potential signs. It isn't until I reach a few feet in the grass that I find the barest imprint of a hoof print. “This looks promising...”

Further into the undergrowth we go, Umani my silent shadow. I weave slowly through the brush, trying my best not to make noise. Minutes pass with no sign and I start to wonder if we are heading to a dead end.

“Do you smell that?” Umani asks. I don't but she splits off to investigate. “Ugh!” Apparently she has found what she was looking for. “What kind of animal leaves feces like this?” Bingo. I follow her and find her wiping her shoe off on some nearby grass.

Thankfully she only glanced the pile and the rest lay in spheres like little cannon balls.

“Congratulations.” I clap Umani on the shoulder. “Looks fresh. We've got ourselves a cat deer. Good eating if we can find it.”

“Is it dangerous?” Umani asks.

“All wild animals are dangerous.” I tell her. “Just stay away from its teeth. And horns... pretty much the head and face in general.” Umani nods. “It can't be too far so we'll have to keep quiet from here on out. You wouldn't believe how sensitive their hearing is.”

We wade through the tall grass and the bushes all around us, taking care to make sure our noise blended rather than crashed against the natural noises of the wood. There is little to guide us in the direction of our prey yet my gut feeling tells me we are getting closer. A light mist starts to fall, stretching the sunlight into rays that pierce through the clouds. I figure if it gets much heavier or we see no further sign of our target that we'll turn back. No need to get soaked for nothing.

At last I see it in the distance, framed by the low hanging branches of trees and haloed by mist in the dim light. I put my hand on Umani's shoulder and point it out to her. She responds like a cat, her attention entirely locked on our prey. I encourage her to follow me, moving achingly slow, feeling my path with my toes before shifting my weight forward. Thankfully the cat deer doesn't seem to be in any hurry to go anywhere.

Inch by painful inch we close in on her. I can tell she's a female by the short rounded horns on her head. Males tend to have a deadlier, more impressive display. In the hazy morning light she is so beautiful. The long, lithe legs. The bright green eyes. The smooth soft coat. It makes me want to leave her be. In fact I turn around to measure Umani's reaction, see if she is of the same mind. Only she isn't there.

How did I lose her? I look around in confusion, trying to see where she had gone off to but I see nothing. She was behind me just a moment go. How could she disappear without me sensing it in the slightest?

It happens in an instant. I hear a rustling in the trees that alerts both me and the cat deer to Umani's presence in the tree above her. But it's too late.

I watch as Umani descends upon the animal quick and quiet as death. Before it has a chance to react she's on its back. A poor move in my mind. The long neck of the cat deer has a surprising amount of reach and flexibility. It turns, sinuous as a snake as it hisses at Umani, whose eyes widen, so clear and green and full of fear. Then it strikes.

I think for sure that it will sink its teeth into her neck and tear out her throat. Instead her arm flashes in front of her, quick as a snake. I watch as she holds her palm just in front of the striking creature's muzzle and then pulls it back in a quick jerk. I've never seen anyone move so fast before. The cat deer collapses on the ground, heaving and twitching while it makes a horrible choking sound. I realize it can't breathe. That she did something to its lungs and now it is suffocating. Awful way to die. She shows no emotion as its spasms weaken, as the agonized choking quiets down and then it finally succumbs. I wonder if I did a good thing in guiding her in how to kill. She takes to it disturbingly well.

She insists on carrying her prize and there is no reason for me to deny her. Hitching the corpse over her shoulders she carries it step by step. It takes the rest of the morning and the sun passing over its zenith until we make it back to camp. The others eye us and the dead cat deer warily. Apparently Umani is unique in her desire to add meat to her diet. I begin to wonder what kind of woman I'm spending my time with.

It takes me a while to find my knife to clean the kill. Umani wants to do it herself but I tell her it would be better if she watches me do it first. I skin it, separating hide from muscle and sinew. This draws a crowd who murmur their disgust. By the time I start removing organs a few start to vomit. I suppose I do not blame them. It took me a long time to become unbothered by gore up to my biceps. Umani is characteristically unperturbed.

We roast the meat for hours, making my mouth water. It had been months since I had eaten anything other than preserves and dried out supplies. Fresh meat, fat sizzling and smoked was exactly what I was in the mood for, even if cat deer was a little gamy.

We shared the meal mostly in silence, Umani eating her share in tiny nibbles. She seems uncertain whether she likes it or not. A curious group gathers and I offer some of mine to them. Most decline but a couple decide to try it. One spits it out, disgusted. The other chews on theirs for a long time before at last swallowing. He seems to like it, but doesn't want any more.

From that day on Umani and I sort of separate ourselves from the group. They welcome us just the same as anyone within the troupe but there are little differences in the way they do so. We are ever so slightly kept at arm's length, and there is always a pair of eyes watching us, though I don't know what exactly for. Maybe that is why they watch. They don't know what to expect.

I don't really either. Umani is a cold sort of companion. Good for odd conversation but not much else. Still, I find myself growing fond of her in her brash strangeness. I continue to teach her to hunt, even though I have my doubts. Something in her eagerness to take to it again and again unsettles me but I feel that it is a door already opened. I suspect she'll continue with or without my help. No sense in inviting an accident by leaving her ignorant.

Her first hunt looks to be a fluke as she is clumsy for the next few. We track down some rabaroos only to have her snap a twig underfoot. Then she misses her shot at an ostrich horse. It is days after that before we find anything.

Still, when she manages to maintain her focus she is a natural. So swift and silent and sure. She slowly becomes more consistent, finding and killing her prey more often than not. It isn't all that long before she is hunting on her own.

The time passes like a dream. There is no structure to the days, only being. I sleep, I wake, I eat, I relax. Some days there is dancing. Others simply a feast that lasts all day. We have won some converts to the meat department. Some have even made necklaces from the bones of our kills. There is music and another night of wine before the stores are exhausted, one sign that the time for the troupe to leave was coming. Another is the warming months. Clothes were becoming scarce among the group and I decide one day that it's hot enough to join them. Umani smiles seeing me in an unironic way. She simply seems pleased that I have become comfortable enough to bare myself.

Inhibitions also become scarce. Hands making their way to parts. Parts finding ways to touch each other and merge. I confess that in my vulnerable state I fall victim to the mood as if it is something contagious. A woman who I'd never met before roves her way to me, bending air over my naked skin that sends chills all over my body. She pounces on me like a tigress and I let her have her way with me. The fact that she is using me, that we silently agree to use each other gives me a sort of erotic comfort. Our copulation is urgent, satisfying something in my body I hadn't realized I had needed as her moans bring me to my finish. She continues riding me mercilessly, sending waves of overwhelming pleasure throughout my body until she satisfies herself. I lay prone as she bends down and gives me a kiss before dismounting and roving away. Gone just as quickly as she had appeared.

“Glad to see you finally enjoying yourself.” Umani is smiling above me. I have no way to cover my shame, still soaked in sweat and more as I lie naked on the grass.

“Do you not know how to feel embarrassed?” I wonder aloud.

“What do you mean?” She's genuinely curious.

“I am here. Completely naked. Still wet from the woman I just lay with and you don't feel anything at all about it?”

“What for?” She shrugs. “It's just what people do. What does it matter to you if I see it?”

“I don't know.” I admit. “It just does.”

She shrugs again but turns away as I clean myself up and get dressed.

“You should do that more often you know.” She suggests. “You already look much better.”

“I really don't need your input on my sex life thank you very much.” I scold her.

“I would hardly consider a single instance in weeks a 'life'.”

“Fair enough.” I concede. Looking off in the distance I notice a good amount of the airbenders are talking together in a group. “Do you know what they're discussing?”

“Of course not.” She says. “But I suspect. I think you do too.”

“What?” I prod.

“Wouldn't it be better just to ask them?” She points out. She's right of course and I make my way over to the group. Brunal smiles at me as he takes my hand.

“I want to come with you.” I blurt. A part of me knows my connection with this troupe is superficial but it's all I have. My throat seizes at the thought of losing it so quickly.

“Who says we are leaving just yet?” Brunal smirks.

“You do not have to say.” I tell him. “The days are getting hot.”

“True.” He admits. “We do not like to sweat unless it's for something that's worth it...”

“So then take me with you.” I implore.

“Not possible.” Brunal shakes his head. “Unless you've learned how to fly.”

“But I could try to meet you wherever you're going...” I plea. “It can't be that hard...”

“Look, Manu.” I don't think I've ever seen Brunal look this serious before. “We have greatly enjoyed your company these past weeks. Truly. However ours is a group of enlightenment through the practice of airbending. You lack the essential tool of our enlightenment. Though we love you as a friend you cannot be one of us.” 

I'm so desperate to not lose whatever I have with these people that I almost tell them that's not true. There was a sure way for me to become one of their “enlightened”. I don't believe that would convince them to take me into their fold however. Who would knowing what I can do?

“We shall meet you again when next we come by these parts, you can count on that.” Brunal smiles and then returns to his discussion with the rest of the group. When I turn to leave I notice Umani is gone. Had they started leaving already?

I go back to my little corner, half expecting the rest of the airbenders to take off like a flock of birds. Instead they laze about and continue on with their camping with little sign of moving on. It makes the sulking more difficult, hours passing by painfully slow in my misery while everyone else dances and cheers and sings till the sun sets. In all that time Umani doesn't return, which doesn't help ease the cloud that has cast itself over this day. The sun sets, spilling a warm orange glow across the grass and rocks around us. 

I decide that if I'm going to be alone I might as well practice. The prospect is painful but I figure it'll be easier if I embrace it outright instead of fighting it. Not that I had given up on my endeavor, but it never hurts to be prepared. A few hundred feet from the group I find an open rocky clearing with shallow puddles all around. It's been a while since I've practiced my waterbending.

I take a deep breath and spin in place, snatching up the pools to stream into a ring encircling me. I swing my arms up, stretching the ring into a dome then cross my hands and rotate my palms, flicking the base of the dome up until it forms a sphere. My hands snap down to my sides, splitting the sphere in two and freezing them into spiky balls. I spin them around like morningstars hurtling through the air, shooting back and forth so close to me that I have to dodge them. It's a variation of a master waterbending reflex exercise. Usually one would do this with smooth, lightly packed ice globes. They hurt but won't likely actually harm you. Long ago some masochistic waterbender had figured out that pain is a great motivator to hone reflexes. You tend to flinch against pain and given enough practice the flinching comes without that pain. Apparently I was in the mood for a more dangerous sort of lesson.

I flit between the sharp spikes, so close they sometimes graze my skin. Jumping, spinning, bending, sliding. It's a dance with so many moving pieces, so many chances for the mechanical grace to crash and collapse into ruin. I don't know why I'm inviting it so closely, why I seemed to be so willing to risk killing myself for so little reason.

But of course that's not true. I know exactly why...

Still the thrill of it courses through me as I continue to flow through the motions. I feel like a star careening through the vastness of the cosmos, hounded by its planets but untouchable.

Then there's a moment where I go to pull on one of the spiked balls. The wind shifts suddenly, throwing off the force I apply when bending the ice towards me, making it come in way too fast. My right hand responds on its own, trying to block the ball as I frantically dissipate the ice into a burst of snow that drifts slowly down onto the clearing floor. Blood drips from a shallow cut in my palm onto the rocky floor. The spike had punctured it with the barest tip. If I had been a moment later in dissolving the ice I probably wouldn't have a hand now. I hear someone clapping.

“I've never seen anyone bend ice like that.” Umani says. “It's pretty entertaining.” She walks into the clearing, giving me that blank stare she always seems to wear. “I'd almost forgotten you were a waterbender. I hardly see you bend. You're very good.”

“Thanks.” I feel awkward, as if caught doing something I shouldn't. “I've been training my whole life.”  
Something is bothering me but I can't quite say what. “Where did you go before?”

“To town.” She barely speaks above a whisper, never takes her eyes off me. I had gotten used to the intensity of her stare but this is at a whole other level.

“But you hate the town.” I tell her. “We like to complain about it together.”

“Yeah well...” She explains, stepping shyly towards me. I wonder if she is thinking about kissing me. I really hope not. “It has some things I need.”

Her hand shoots out in front of my face and I can feel her grabbing at the air inside me. I jerk back just as I feel her start to pull. It's just enough to stop her from collapsing my lungs though it knocks the wind out of me. I sputter and cough, my lungs on fire as I reach below me, pulling up earth in a shield wall around me. I can hear a great gust of wind buffeting the stone in front of me.

“Well this is a surprise.” Umani's voice is muffled. “No wonder your Water Tribe brethren are paying so much for you.” I see her jump up on top of the wall in front of me. “No matter. Put up whatever walls you like. I can get around them.”

She slaps me with a gust of wind, knocking me to the ground.

“Is that all I am to you?” I ask her. “A prize?”

“No, you were a friend of sorts.” She shrugs. “At least you had your uses. You'll be far more useful as money, though.” She comes in with a kick that I barely manage to dodge. I cross my arms and two spikes of ice shoot out at her. Umani dodges them deftly, barely halting her course to get to me. I can't let her get close.

I move the top layer of rock below my feet, pushing me back as she lands on the ground. A shockwave of air sets me off my balance so I fall back a few steps. Anything to keep distance between me and her. I don't want to die like that cat deer did, choking for air. She rises from her landing and I notice the most... horrific expression on her face. Her eyes are so wide they look ready to pop out of her head and her lips have disappeared completely into a smile that looks more like a dog baring its teeth. She is entirely possessed by her excitement of this moment, as if she had been storing all of her emotions this whole time we knew each other and only now was channeling them into this deluge of feeling that distorts her face. It's terrifying.

I throw whatever I can at her. Stones, ice shards, even some water itself in the hopes of striking her. She dodges them all, slippery as an eel hound as she closes in on me much too quickly. I risk throwing something new at her, not sure if I can actually do it. My foot slams against the ground and I throw my arms in front of me, sending ripples into the ground so that it shakes the dirt into a loose mud. Her feet disappear in it as she lands and I try to solidify it around her. I prove too clumsy and she gets out before I do so.

This is it. She is coming.

I don't have anything to fall back on. Nothing to throw at her, nothing to put up between us. She is coming to kill me. I can see it in the the veins pulsing in her eyes. I'm not even sure if she cares about the bounty. Just eager to meet this chance to bring death.

A sliver of the moon breaks above the rocky crags to shine down on us and I feel its light strengthen me. I realize my only chance.

She lunges at me, her fervor pushing her far too close. I'd only have one shot. I close my eyes and stand my ground, shooting my arms in front of me and reach out, feeling the gentle thrum of her pulse as I squeeze my hands into fists.

The way she screams sends my blood running cold. She hangs limp in the air, just inches in front of me and quivering. The skin of her arm is twisted and her face is contorted in agony. Blood starts to pour in little trickles from the corners of her mouth.

“What is this?” She groans, her eyes cracked with red. I let her go and she plops to the ground with a sickening squish and a sharp cry. I go to touch her, try to find some way to help but her arm is... soft, the muscle like a soaked sponge. I must've burst every vein in her body. She shudders painfully with every breath.

“Why?” I ask, unsure why this betrayal hurts me so much. Maybe it's because I expected so little from our friendship and even that was denied.

“I can't live with these people...” She hacks up more blood, choking on it as she breathes in again. She doesn't have long. “They go... wherever... the wind takes them...” A wince cuts into her and she closes her eyes for a long while. So long I think she's dead. But at last she opens them wearily and they are dim, shining like glass. “I wanted... to control... the wind... Have... my own life... Your bounty... could give me... that...”

“So take what you need...” I don't know what I'm feeling. Disgust at her grotesquely mangled body, at her cavalier attitude in trying to kill me. Guilt for killing her this way because no one deserves a death like this. Anger at her attack against me. Fear for what I want and knowing how easily I can take it. “That's all it was between us...”

She's too far gone to reply, her eyes slowly going dark. I reach inside and start to draw in the bloody threads that have become all too familiar to me. She spasms in pain but though I do not enjoy it I find it hard to care. No need to let her gift go to waste...

 

The next morning I wake and tell the rest that Umani had decided to return back to the Southern Temple. It's easy to believe. Many had expected as much. It's a little sad how quickly everyone accepts it. How no one questions me further. Everyone is too busy with themselves I suppose, and who am I to judge? I can feel the fever coming. Already I'm light-headed.

I wrap myself in furs from the animals that Umani had killed as the cold sweat starts to come. She'd gotten very good at hunting... all that time spent honing skills. How long had she'd known about me? From the very beginning? Had she been practicing the whole time to take me down?

I'd like to think that isn't true but I'm not sure what to believe at this point. It's obvious I never really knew her. Which had been part of the appeal. Umani was someone I didn't want to get close to. Still, I had wanted her as a friend. She seemed so dependable that way. Always someone for me to talk to... There wasn't much there but it still pains me to think what little there was had been false.

I brood and I shiver for the next couple days, the sickness, whatever it is, feeling less severe than before. Perhaps my body is getting used to this process. I'm not sure how I feel about the prospect. Still I have little energy to spare. Thankfully some of the troupe would help me when I'd get thirsty. Even give me some bitter leaves to chew on. I'm not sure how much they help but the taste is a welcome distraction. I don't eat much.

Finally the fever breaks and I breathe in the fresh morning air, trying to see if I can sense something different about it. But it's still air. It hangs invisible all around me. I breathe it in and it gives me life. I feel it rustling through my clothes and hair. It doesn't feel any different than before. Did it not work?Was the time with Hajuk just a fluke? It's certainly possible, considering all that I didn't know about this blood business. Still, I hope it's not the case. If I can't airbend I can't leave with the rest of the group and I'll be alone again. With Umani gone I'm more desperate than ever to leave with the rest of the airbenders. If she could figure out who I am others could as well. It might not be long before others catch up to my trail. I have to figure this out.

“What does it feel like to airbend?” I ask Brunal when I finally manage to corner him.

“What do you mean?” He looks confused.

“How does it feel to connect with the wind?” I try to clarify. “Like with water it's a sort of rhythmic flow that you merge with. Is air anything like that?”

“Well... yes and no.” Brunal explains. “Air flows, I'll give you that, but there's not much rhythm to it. It just kind of goes however it likes.” He pulls at the air and a draft starts to buffet us. “You have to sort of convince it to go the way you like. Tease it around the edges. If you try to merge with it directly it's liable to go wild.” He grabs with both hands and the wind bursts out in a wave. “That make sense?”

“Sort of...” I can picture what he's saying but it doesn't help me to sense the air like a bender can.

“I like this sort of talk.” Brunal smiles. “I always figured bending is bending throughout the four nations. Never imagined it would feel so different between the elements.”

“You don't put much stock in differences anyway.”

“Too true!” He claps me on my shoulder. “I'm going to miss you when we leave.”

“Have you decided when that will be?” I venture.

“Few days.” He admits. “Two, maybe three. We'll want a good wind to guide us to our next step in the journey.”

“I wish you luck.” I try to hide my disappointment as I walk away.

“No you don't.” Brunal grins as he calls to me. “But I appreciate your words all the same.”

I try to glean something of use from Brunal's words but no matter how I try to “tease” the wind I come up with nothing. The wind blows however it wants and I can only feel it graze across my skin as it passes. There is no sign of it otherwise. Nothing for me to sense. Nothing for me to hold on to.

A breeze wafts to me and I decide to defy advice and grab a hold of it if I can. I have no idea what I'm reaching for but I try anyway. In my haste I touch upon... something. It's hard to describe. Whatever it is it's hardly even there but when I grab a hold of it I feel a rush come over me, bubbling up to the very top of my skull till it bursts. I feel the wave of it smack against me and dissolve.

 _Was that airbending?_ It's hard to tell, seeing as it hardly felt like bending at all. More like popping a bubble. I have no clue how to translate that into a controlled motion.

I close my eyes and take in a deep breath. This time when I do I can notice that... something I had felt before in the breeze. At least I think I do. It's like a phantom. One moment there and the next you're not so sure. But it's all I have to go on.

The wind stirs again in front of me, rustling the grass and tree branches and I try to sense... whatever it is I think I'm sensing. When I close my eyes I can almost see it... no them. There are so many, fluttering like dust motes in a sunbeam. I reach out with what I hope is my bending and try to touch it. The motes flow violently around it, creating a small whirlwind. I back off and the wind dies down a little bit but continues to circle in front of me like an excited puppy. I go to sort of pet it and it blasts away from me, shooting through the branches of a nearby tree.

This is so incredibly strange. I was expecting air to be much easier to bend than earth. For much of my life I had simply thought of air as lighter water. I did not think trying to manipulate it would be so... explosive. Every attempt I make seems to erupt with wild energy. I cannot fathom how I could ever learn to control it. Still, it's enough to show the others. Hopefully they take the news well.

I find Brunal on his own for once. It's the first time I've ever been alone with him. His face seems less jovial but more relaxed.

“Brunal!” I call to him. He waits patiently for me to come to him. “I have amazing news!”

“Oh?” I catch a flash of irritation from him. Not surprising considering how much I've been hounding him. Hopefully that attitude will not stick when I show him what I can do.

“I'm not sure how it happened.” I lie. “But... look!” I try to ignore his now open exasperation as I breathe in deep and close my eyes. Unfortunately the air is very still around us, the motes keeping hidden.

“What is it I'm supposed to be looking at?” Brunal asks.

“Just wait...” I implore him. “I just need a good breeze to kick up and-.”

“Look.” Brunal cuts in. “I know you do not wish us to part and this is some ploy to join us but we have much to make ready before our departure tomorrow. I'm sorry but I must go.”

He turns to leave and I hold my breath in panic. I need something to move the air but the wind stubbornly refuses to pick up. I'm about to sigh in exasperation before I realize my breath. I could feel the motes coalescing in my lungs, waiting to be released. So I do, expelling them as I exhale in one great explosive whoosh that almost sends Brunal to the ground.

He spins around, all his dismissal and annoyance gone from his face. Only shock.

“Who did that?” He questions me. “Where are they hiding?”

“I did.” I tell him. “No one is hiding.”

“Impossible.” He shakes his head. “I am in no mood for jest or trickery. Is it Umani? I never took her for the prankster type...”

“Umani is gone.” I do my best to stop my eyes from watering. She was barely a friend and betrayed me in the end but it still stung. “I'm telling you it was me.”

“No one in ten thousand years has ever been able to bend more than one element.” Brunal argued. “And believe me many have tried. Stop this nonsense.”

Finally the wind stirs again, so slight that it threatens to disperse at any moment. I reach out my hand and encourage it forward so that it buffets us both. He goes to reverse it and I grab hold so that it explodes in a forceful wave.

He looks at me agog.

“I can't believe it...” He murmurs. “No more games. Is this the truth or is Umani going to come out from behind a tree.”

“I'm not lying.” I insist. _At least not about everything..._ “I'm telling you. Umani is gone. This is real. I am doing it.”

“Can you still waterbend?” He asks. “Maybe you've simply been converted somehow.”

I bend the sweat from his brow and flick it away. He shudders with what I hope is just a chill.

“I don't know what to say.” He says after a long silence. “This is absolutely unheard of.”

“So will you take me with you when you go?”

Brunal looks at me with sad eyes. “I'm sorry...”

“Why not?” I demand. “I am one of your 'enlightened' now. Why can't I come?”

“Practical matters.” Brunal answers. “I would take you with us if I could. You being such a marvel. But you don't know how to fly and we don't have time to teach you.”

“Can't you just stay longer?” I ask. “Teach me well enough to get along on your next journey?”

“I'm afraid not.” To his credit Brunal seems truly pained by all this. “There are those in our group who have gotten wrapped up in questionable business. Pretty common for people who escape from the temple's rigid structure. We all tend to rebel a little. Some take it a little too far...

“In any case there are those with bounties among our flock.” Brunal continues. “Me among them. It's a risk to stay in any one place for too long. We've learned that the hard way.”

I wanted to laugh at the irony of it all but that would spoil everything.

“I think you should go to the Southern Temple.” Brunal advises.

“But you ran away from the temples.” I point out. He laughs heartily.

“Only because they are austere and limited.” He tells me. “Not because they were ever cruel, even if they are somewhat tyrannical in their asceticism. They will care for you and teach you in ways we will be unable to on the move.”

“So that's it?” I can't hide my disappointment. “You leave and I become an Air Nomad monk?”

“Only as much as suits you.” He assures me. “You can attend to their ways but it is you who decides how much of that enters your heart. We will return when winter has been defeated once more and the island is a brief but lovely paradise again. If you want to join us again you will be more than welcome to.”

“If?” I question. It doesn't seem possible to me that I would prefer the company of monks to the freedoms of this troupe.

“Who knows?” Brunal shrugs. “It is a good life. Simple, but not for everyone. You may decide that it works better for you. There is a price for the kind of freedom we pursue.”

I am still saddened at the prospect of being left behind but some of my fear has lessened. His plan makes sense. The Southern Temple isn't far from here. He may not know it but his problem is mine as well. It would be a good next place to go to keep moving. A haven that would teach me how to tame the winds. As it is I have no idea how learn how to do so myself. My only other option is to try to follow the troupe anyway when they go to leave. Somehow I don't have much faith in the idea.

So that's it. Despite everything I won't be leaving with them. As upset as that makes me I can't help but feel a little relieved that it is done. The urgent desperation I had been nursing over the past few days had been exhausting and now that there is nothing else I could do I can finally let it go.

That night they build a great big bonfire to signal their departure. Something about lighting the way though I don't really see how a big fire here on the ground was supposed to guide them elsewhere through the air. Not that I'm complaining. Brunal had saved casks of wine for the occasion and since no one wanted to be left with the duty of carrying one when they left all were encouraged to partake in it with gusto. I suggest they could just leave whatever was left with me. They get a good laugh out of that.

Music is vibrant and everywhere, the troupe becoming an orgy of sound and dance and in some cases literally as some groups come together to intimately celebrate. At some point I see a man throw something leafy green into the bonfire, making a pungent, sour smoke. He cackles as I wrinkle my nose and starts to bend the cloud among the group. I expect to see disgust and irritation but instead I see people breathing in the cloud deeply, giggling and coughing as they do so. I can't help but breathe some in myself, it being all around me. Soon a warm buzzing starts at the top of my head and sort of sifts down into the rest of my body. I can't help but grin as the music starts to penetrate almost physically into my body, sending waves that goad me into dance. I honestly don't remember the last time I had danced.

I want to try my hand at the airbender games they are playing but I'm not sure it's a good idea to expose my bending to everyone just yet. While I trust Brunal that doesn't mean there aren't those like Umani among the flock.

Still it is a glorious night.

 

The morning comes overcast and grey. How fitting for my mood. Even the dull glow of the sun filtered through the clouds is enough to shock a headache through my eyes. I look around to see that half the group is already packed and ready. The other half is not far behind. I can't believe how organized and ready they are after a night of such debauchery. Brunal comes by as I wash the sleep from my face from a shallow bowl.

“I guess this is goodbye my friend.” He says with open arms. I accept the hug begrudgingly, my hangover making this parting all the more sour. “I do hope you take my advice. There are fishing boats that head that way from town daily. Shouldn't be difficult to arrange a ride.”

“Can you at least tell me where you are going?” I plead.

“And have you try and chase after us?” He smiles. “No I don't think so. We'll return as quickly as we are able. You'll just have to be patient. Some time with the monks might even be good for you.”

He leaves to nag the stragglers that are making last minute preparations. They have all sorts of tricks to pack their supplies flat against them so as to not hinder their flight. Even so the stores are light. Only so much can be allowed and be expected to fly. When the group at last comes together Brunal stands at their center, holding up his staff. The others follow suit, raising theirs and cheering as Brunal deploys his glider. They do the same and they collectively kneel low to the ground then launch themselves up into the sky. It truly is like a flock of birds taking wing as they spiral around each other like leaves in autumn, rising up and up till they are as small as birds themselves, fluttering off to their new destination. I already hate how quiet it is without them.

It's easy enough to book passage on a fishing boat, just like Brunal says. I simply prove I'm a waterbender and they're happy to have me aboard. In fact they offer to take me further than the Southern Temple, try to make it “worth my while”. Ships from other nations highly value waterbenders and an easy way to make a living is to be hired by one. I'm not interested. It's a short, uneventful trip.

We arrive at night after I had dozed off. When I get above deck I wonder if this is some sort of trick. There is no shore, just a great wall of rock as far as they eyes can see and a carpet of clouds cutting off its peak. We're tied to what would be charitably called a dock and more resembles a rough hewn platform carved into the cliff-face, slick from the sea with a narrow stair leading up out of sight.

“This is the way to the Southern Temple?” I ask the captain, a burly man with a scraggly grey beard.

“Nah, only way to get there is by flying.” The captain informs me. “This is the way to the Bison landing. Except we're a little late. Next Bison won't be along till tomorrow.” We spend the night on the ship. Some of the men are playing pai-sho but it's a game I've never really wrapped my mind around. Still it's interesting to see how the different sailors play.

Morning comes and the captain tries one more time to hire my services for his ship.

“What do you think you are even going to find at that temple?” He asks. “Just a bunch of stuffy monks with nothing to do all day. This is a chance to make some real money. Make a life for yourself.”

“Thank you, but I've already done all that and then some.” I refuse a final time. “Time for something new.” The captain shrugs and sighs.

“Well, if that's the case then all you need to do is make your way up those steps.” He lets me know. “Watch your footing though. They're smooth as river rocks and wet more often than not. It's more than a few that have fallen and never come back.”

I shake his hand and bid him farewell before I mount the steps. He isn't kidding. Even as I take my first step I can feel my boot slide across the rock. It's not like river stone. It's like marble covered in grease. I take my time planting my feet with each step and after longer than probably necessary finally manage to reach the summit, a shallow smooth bowl filled with grass. It is empty and so very quiet hanging just below the ceiling of clouds lined with dark purple shadows. Looks like rain.

I walk among the small field and can't help but be mesmerized by its serenity. Nothing is here except the spirals the wind draws when stirring the grass. It's been so long since I'd felt this... peaceful.

An enormous shadow emerges from the clouds above me, shattering the tranquility. I scream and jump out of its way, feeling the ground shake as it lands next to me with a crash. My heart is racing and I'm gasping for breath as I turn around to face whatever monster this is, only to find a giant fluffy beast laying on its side, groaning in pleasure as an old bald airbender rubs its belly. The Bison is so... big. Way bigger than I'd ever imagined. It's horns are the size of my leg and its eyes the size of my face. The rest of him is so large that there are no easy comparisons. I'm glad for the moment that he remains gentle.

“Sorry for the scare.” The old airbender says, clearly amused. “Didn't expect to find anyone here this early. Do you mind terribly waiting a bit while Bubo has his breakfast?” It seems I don't have much choice as the beast in question starts munching on some of the stalks around us. “The grass that grows here is his favorite. It's why we were chosen for this task. He'll be finished in a moment.”

Bubo takes his time happily chomping at the grass around us. He does a little dance as he eats, shifting between his six giant feet with each bite. At last he seems satisfied and comes back up to the airbender.

“Well it looks like Bubo's ready.” The airbender announces cheerily. “How about you?”

I've never flown on a sky bison before. Just looking at the size of it makes me want to abandon this whole venture and find my way elsewhere. I suppose I could go back down to the ship and take up the captain's offer. But that doesn't feel right.

“I guess I am.” I say.

“Well then hop on.” He encourages me. “We'll make it to the Southern Temple in no time.”

He helps me up the Bison's side and I nestle as best I can among its fur. Just the act of it breathing sends me up alarmingly high. It could buck me off without a thought. I try not to think about that when the airbender leaps up, kicking his feet and yelling “Yip, yip.”

The bison erupts into the sky, wind lashing against my face and hair. Fear clenches my throat so that when I yell out I'm hoarse and shrill. I can hear the airbender laughing at me as we shoot up ever further into the sky, piercing into the clouds. Then after a quick, cold, damp, foggy transition we break through to a clear blue sky and a pale white sun. Over to our right is the temple, its towers stretching like fingers at the air, so small it looks like a dollhouse. I can see other Sky Bison flying around them, far enough away to look like flies. The old airbender guides our Bison towards it and soon the little toy towers of the temple become bigger, more solid, more real.

We land in an open courtyard that is an empty grass field bordered by stone. I am absolutely ravaged by the wind and the old airbender won't stop smiling in that sly way of his but it is difficult to not be in awe of this place. So many people and creatures flying about it like a beehive. Benders dodge lemurs as they go from one tower to the next. So crisp and clean, simple and utilitarian as all the architecture in the Temple is.

“I forgot to ask you what brings you here, traveler.” The old airbender inquires. “Are you merely visiting our home? You are welcome to, of course. I can show you around if you like.” His smile falters a little when I do not take him up on his offer. “Or do you come with a specific purpose in mind?”

“I...” I'm not sure if I should tell him. “I... recently found out that I'm... an airbender.”

He looks at me dubiously. “It is strange for you to only find out so late in life... You also look to be from the Water Tribes...”

“Mom and Dad were from the Southern Water Tribe. Well, really only my mom.” I don't know where the lies or coming from or how I've learned to tell them so easily but there they are. “My real father was an airbender she had an affair with. Found that out after my dad died a year back. She was drunk and upset and feeling particularly... truthsome. Well, until then I never really thought to try. Then one day.” The wind picks up around us and I latch onto it, feeling it separate into a series of whirlwinds thin and wild as unraveling threads.

“You can bend the air I see.” He admits. “Though you certainly lack training. It may be difficult to teach you the art so late. Once a mind reaches adulthood it becomes harder to learn new things.”

“Don't worry, I'm practiced at learning things outside of my comfort zone.”

“What is your name, stranger?” The old airbender asks.

“Hajuk.” I lie yet again. It's probably wise that I leave the name Manu behind.

“Welcome to the Southern Air Temple, Hajuk.” He opens his arms and bows his head as he says this. “I am Aurian.”

Aurian becomes the closest thing to a friend that I'll let anyone get to the role now. A welcome voice always at arm's length. The rest of the benders are open enough but Aurian seems to feel somehow responsible for me. It is he who shaves my head. A strange sensation being bald... He makes sure I'm getting along in my training. Sees how I'm handling my transition into a monk's kind of life. Which is not entirely well.

Not to say that the experience is awful. I actually quite like the fresh air and open sky. The monks' chanting is a soothing presence. Even the chores are comforting. But the accommodations are terrible. They give me one to myself but it's the size of a closet with a bed that makes me miss the stone slab I'd had to deal with in the early days of living with Hajuk. Nothing is allowed that would add comfort or personality. Sometimes I would bend some small rocks into shapes in the corner, just to have something to decorate with. It's never for long but it helps blunt the harsh minimalism of the place. I don't want the airbenders to discover my secrets.

The food is equally terrible as it is simply one thing. Rice, Well made, but flavorless and all there is. I'm sick of it after a week. After a month I can barely get myself to take a bite of it. They give us lemon in water to prevent scurvy but that is the only reprieve. I suppose it's one way to ensure supplies won't run out.

But the absolute worst are the lessons. No matter how I try, the nuances of airbending are just beyond me. Every touch explodes out of control either dispersing the flow of wind or multiplying it to absurd proportions. Which wouldn't be so bad if there weren't dozens of children a third of my age who are better than me. There's a streaming exercise where the group comes together in a circle and sort of passes the air to the person next to them making a ring. The boy next to me passes it and as I send it along it balloons into an intense gust that just keeps growing until it's a dust storm trying to blow us off the mountain. After that I'm relegated to specialized, one-on-one training, which helps the immediate problem but hardly makes me feel better.

“You're still trying to hold on to it.” Aurian scolds me. “You have to learn to let go as you set it in motion.”

“I am.” I assure him. It's all I've been doing. Once the reaction starts I just let go and it only seems to make it worse. I have no idea how to satisfy his requirements further.

“You're not listening.” Aurian informs me.

“Of course I'm listening.” I argue. “You're telling me that in guiding the wind I must let go.”

“Yes, those were my words.” He concedes. “But that is not the lesson.”

“How can the lesson not be within your words?” I growl through gritted teeth. I have never felt so inept, so incapable.

“All lessons are beyond words.” He points out. “They are merely the tools by which we convey them.”

“Then convey to me further.” I don't know how to make my point clearer. He smiles. Smiles!

“I cannot speak to one who does not listen.” He continues to admonish to my violent irritation.

“And I cannot listen to one who does not speak sense!” I'm yelling at this point but I'm so frustrated that I don't care. Almost two months of this. Their puerile, monotonous ramblings about the 'ethereal presence' of the twice-damned air! That fragile element that can't seem to interact with me on a reasonable level.

I wonder if this is kharma. Something the monks would preach among their practical lessons. Apparently it is the result of your debt to the universe, in which all your past actions are judged and therefore determine your destiny at every present step, disempowering your ability to control your life as it spirals into the chaos of the choices you have already made. I've certainly done enough to earn worse but I can't help but collapse in my frustration.

“I am trying.” I don't know how to make it clearer.

“Yes, that is the problem.” Aurian sighs. He sits down on a log and invites me to tea, a rare indulgence I hadn't received from my teachers since I'd started my training. After the blandness of the rice and lemon water the lavender was almost erotic in its pungency.

“It is usually better for a student to discover this on their own.” He tells me, sipping lightly at his tea. “But you have proven stubborn beyond expectation. I suppose we should've expected it from one your age.”

“I'm getting a little tired of old men commenting on how old I am.” I hiss through gritted teeth. Aurian laughs.

“Fair enough.” He admits. “I will explain to you the key to airbending, since you have much catching up to do.” I roll my eyes but that only widens his grin. “You have a heavy touch, Hajuk. Every time you try to move the air you think you're wrestling with a snake, You try to latch onto its neck and point it where you want it to go.”

He waves his hands around, inviting a breeze that encircles and embraces us. I feel almost hugged by the wind.

“But the nature of air rejects any assertion of control. It will resist any attempt at domination. You must coax it. Gently easing its passage the way you wish.” A breeze billows upward and for a moment it threatens to take me with it. In that moment I wouldn't have fought if it were so. “You are not controlling its flow, you are guiding it. There is never a moment in airbending where you are technically in control.”

“Then how do you bend at all?” I huff, exasperated. “Bending is all about control.”

“And how would you know that?” Aurian probes.

“Just from what I've seen.” I explain, inaccurately. “Every bender I've ever witnessed is clearly in control.”

“True but that control is limited to the aspects of the element itself.” Aurian lectures. “Air is tricky, changeable, non-committal. It only responds to... enticement. Focus on where you want it to go rather than where it is.” 

It makes no sense but all my other attempts at manipulating air have ended in naught so I try it. Instead of trying to force a wind to go directly I create a sort of vacuum that the air spirals towards. It's so much easier I realize, to know that air simply goes the way it wants and that you just have to tap into those wants in order to bend it towards your desire. So simple I wonder how I could have possibly misunderstood it for so long.

“Now you are listening.” Aurian confirms.

It isn't much longer till I'm reintegrated into to the regular class. In fact, once I had mastered its secret I found learning the rest of it tedious, obvious. Almost a waste of time. Still it took time to make it obvious to my instructors. First impressions and all that. After a time though it is hard to deny my talent.

There is a dance meant to be a sort of final examination for airbenders. It is a series of chambers full of many moving parts. The bender is placed within its great sphere of coalescing movement and must find their way to escape. Even if few died from the attempt it was often hours before you could be broken out. I want to face it now to my instructors' confusion.

“It is true you have improved.” One of the elders admits.

“But that does not mean you are ready for our trials of mastery.” Another finishes. “Even among our most promising students it takes years to acquire the skills to face it.”

“I'm not sure you understand how dangerous it is.” Yet another cautions. “The stones move without mercy. Those who aren't prepared are maimed or worse.”

“I still think I am ready.” I insist.

“I'm sure you do.” It's Aurian this time. “And maybe even you are. But what can it hurt to wait a while? Continue to practice? You've been with us a scant few months.”

“You all keep saying I'm old and behind.” I tell them. “If I go the usual pace I may never master it.”

“And if you die you certainly won't.” The finality in his tone tells me that the discussion is over. They won't let me do it. I bow before walking away, already forming a plan to get inside myself.

I wait till the moon is at its zenith, long after the monks have fallen asleep. Since we wake at dawn it is unwise to be up so late but I feel I must take this chance. I want to prove my own mastery and see if I cannot somehow catch up with the troupe. They can't have gone too far. Probably somewhere in the Earth Provinces. I'm certain I can find their trail somehow.

So I stand before the orb of stone that acts as the trials. It has many layers like a pill bug. I place my hand on its surface, reaching out with my senses. It feels... impossible. So many layers intricately folded over themselves. It's difficult to discern an overall pattern. Tentatively I push at them and they shift, scraping against each other in a smooth rumble. It takes a bit of tweaking with it before I get even a slight glimmer of how it works, even longer for me to open it. It's a surprise when the orb finally opens up like an iris. I take a moment to center myself before diving inside, letting the iris close behind me. I expect total darkness, realizing too late that I hadn't brought a torch or something with me, but there is something glowing on the walls, some luminescent paste smeared across it. On the ground are a series of windmills, open wire domes lined with little sails that are attached to gears that fit together with an assortment of others across the floor.

I bend a gust of air at one and it spins setting other gears clicking into life. A slice of stone comes from one of the cracks between the layers of rock on the walls of the orb. I spin away and barely manage to dodge it. So... there are surprises in this little maze of sorts. The monks were right, this trial is more dangerous than I had thought. Which makes this all the more exciting.

The next windmill sends a plate of stone falling from the roof above my head. It takes a lightning quick leap to get out of the way. Then it rises back up and disappears. Same for all of them. Each one tried singly triggers some trap that I have to dodge around. Only when I start to bend combinations of windmills do I begin to move the inner layers of the walls. As they move the combinations change what they affect. The engineering required to make such a mechanism... it's beyond me. Getting out is going to be much more complicated than I had imagined. I fear my masters may have been right... Every time I think I'm heading in the right direction I make a false move that sends a deadly trap my way. It's hard to keep track of what works and what doesn't. After a while I get into a certain flow. I can easily bend all sorts of combinations and dodge the traps as they came at me. Yet there is no sign of further progress. No matter how I move the stone shell pieces they don't seem to get any closer to opening up its iris.

Obviously, something more is needed. More spinning, more complexity. I try to add more to my previous regimen but it sends the orb's mechanisms wild. Traps lash out and the walls shift like a kaleidoscope. I can't find the pattern, can't keep up with the movements. A piece slides too quickly for me to dodge and comes bearing down on my arm. I'm not fast enough and it clamps on it, squeezing tight. The force of my body falling wrenches it out of my socket, pain tearing through my shoulder as I cry out. The only reason the piece doesn't crush my arm completely is that I manage to get a grip on it with my earthbending. Shaking in agony I lift it up so that I plop painfully onto the ground. After a few minutes of hissing through my teeth, the pain subsides enough for me to inspect the damage.

It's limp from being dislocated but at least no bones seem to be broken, just a few scrapes from the bite of the stone. Should be fine just as long as I get the shoulder back in. I use my other hand to manipulate the blood in my upper arm, getting the muscle itself to shove bone back into its socket. Sharp pain shoots out but it seems to work. The arm will be weak while it recovers but it'll be usable at least.

I've had enough tonight. It hurts my shoulder but I manage to earthbend the iris open again and escape. By the time I get back to my room the sky is already lighting up. I rest my eyes for a bit but all too soon I have to face the morning.

 

“So who built the Stone Trial anyway?” I ask Aurian later. He smiles and winks at me. I wonder if he knows what I had gotten up to last night. He had commented that my form seemed off today. My shoulder feels creaky and I can't flow through the bending forms as smoothly as usual. 

“No one knows.” He shrugs. “It's an artifact that has been here since before the first temple was built.”

“First?” I ask. “There's been more than one?”

“Quite a few actually.” He says. “At least that's what they tell us. The Southern Temple has been through its share of misfortunes. The last one was destroyed by the Southern Water Tribe. They summoned a tidal wave of incredible height to wash it away. I remember watching it rise like a mountain as I flew with the others to escape. They succeeded but the damn fools got caught up in their own bending and smashed themselves against the mountain. I'm sure there's a lesson there somewhere.” Another pointed look. “I miss the old Temple. So much more open and simple...”

“And the Trial survived through it all?” I'm incredulous. “How?”

“Engineering, I suppose.” He doesn't seem very interested. “I don't have the mind for such things. All I know is that it's been here longer than I have and I had to solve the damn thing to achieve mastery over my bending.”

I don't know what to say to him. It amazes me that the Stone Trial can be so old, so intricate and yet still be in perfect working order. What craft did people once know in ages past that we have forgotten? It makes me wonder what else we have lost to time.

“I find it odd...” Aurian muses, looking at me with the corner of his eye. “That you solved the Trial under cover of night and didn't tell anyone.”

“You saw me?” I blurt before I can catch myself.

“You're not the only one who has trouble sleeping at night.” He smirks at me and places his finger on the side of his nose. “You were in there quite a while. I figured we were going to have to dig you out in the morning. Then you solved it... Only I'd never seen the iris open like that. If I didn't know any better I'd say you found a way to cheat.”

I know he knows but I can't say it, can't find it in me to confirm what he was hinting at. He laughs at my discomfort and claps a hand on my shoulder.

“It's impossible but it's true isn't it?” He says. “You're an earthbender.”

“Well...” I find I can't deny it either. “It's a little more than that.”

“Oh?” His brows rise. There is a bird bath next to us and I pull on the water, flicking it to splash in Aurian's face. He spits out a little that had gotten in his mouth. “Oh.”

“So... yeah.” I scratch my head, wondering how he's going to react.

“So can you bend... everything?” He asks.

“Haven't gotten to fire yet.” I admit.

“But you think you can learn it?” Aurian questions.

“Probably.” I figure. “I'm not entirely sure how it works.”

“Incredible.” Aurian seems truly impressed. “Why do you hide your gifts from the world? You could change so much with your power.”

“I'm not exactly... welcome in my homeland anymore.” I don't know why I'm deciding to tell him everything. I suppose I had wanted to tell it to someone for a long time now. He is simply here when I finally break. Recognition dawns on Aurian's face.

“You're the waterbender the Southern Tribe has been looking for aren't you?” He nods his head. “They said you did some nasty business, drained someone's blood.”

“It was an accident...” I insist. He looks me straight in the eyes. I'd never noticed them before. Deep and brown and warm but also faded with years and brimming with wisdom.

“I believe you.” He says. “So you started as a waterbender?” I nod and he rests his chin in his hand. “How did you get your other bending?”

“I'd rather not say...” I mutter.

“Why? Because it has to do with what you did to that man with his blood?” The naked accusation in his tone shocks me into silence, all but confirming his suspicions. “Did you kill people for their bending?”

“No...” Even though I'm technically telling the truth it feels hollow in my mouth. Both had died because of me. The distinction is insignificant. “I got my earthbending from a man I loved. Hajuk...”

“Ah, so your real name is...?” He asks.

“Manu.” I answer. It feels strange to say now.

“Nice to finally meet you, Manu.” He tells me.

“A dragon attacked us.” I continue my story. “He was stupid and tried to take it down. Succeeded too. But not before it burned him to a crisp. I tried to share my blood with him to save him. It didn't work. Somehow his bending came to me.”

“And how did you get the airbending?”

This story was a little harder to tell. It was more recent and... messier. “There was a woman. I thought she was my friend...” I took in a deep shaky breath. “She tried to kill me for the bounty on my head. I didn't let her... When she lay dying I decided to try and save her bending at least.”

“What was this woman's name?” I don't like how worried he sounds.

“Umani.”

He shuts his eyes, looking pained. “So you ran into Brunal's troupe.”

“You know of them?” I ask.

“Of course.” He snorts. “Many of their flock came from our Temple. Umani among them. She was always a willful girl. I feared for her when she left us.”

“I'm sorry...” I'm surprised I mean it when I say it. “I didn't mean to kill her.”

“No... in some ways I expected this.” He speaks so low, so quiet, so calm. “I always thought she would leap headlong to her death. Maybe not quite so quickly...”

“Are you going to turn me in?” I ask. He looks to me and I can see him considering his options. Finally he gives me a reassuring smirk.

“I don't really see the point in that.” He says at last.

“What about the money?” I offer.

“What would I buy with it here?” He shrugs.

“Is there nothing you want?” I press. It's hard for me to believe he'd just let me go on as if nothing had happened.

“Of course there are.” He scoffs. “Just nothing I can get with money.”

“That's not very monkly of you.” I accuse.

“Enlightenment is about being honest with yourself.” Aurian corrects. “The truth isn't always what you want it to be, but admitting it's not is the first step in making it so. The rest is just practice.”

“Sounds easy enough.” I tease. “Why hole yourself up in this temple if that's all you need to do?”

“Simple is not the same as easy” He cautions. “Why didn't you stay with the troupe? You don't seem like the ascetic type.”

“You saw me when I came.” I pointed out. “Practically useless. They said they couldn't teach me to fly in time.”

“Eh... Brunal was never the greatest of teachers.” Aurian lets me know. “The group is not known for their love of commitment and responsibility. I wouldn't be surprised if they were simply trying to get rid of what they thought of was dead weight... no offense.”

“No that's a good way to put it...” I admit.

“So he sent you to us to do the dirty work.” Aurian chuckles. “Typical. Are you waiting for when they return, then?”

“Not exactly...” His eyes pierce into my own and see the truth.

“Ah, so that's why you're so eager to face the Trial.” Aurian deduces. “You'll never find them you know. They don't have a plan. You can't track something that flies directionless in the wind.”

“I don’t want to wait a year for them to come back.” I moan. Aurian bursts out laughing.

“You think they’ll be back in a year?” It’s the first time he’s ever made me feel small and that hurts, which frustrates me since I had been making an effort to make sure we’d not gotten close to enough for his words to cut me like this. “It’s been five since we last saw them. They live according to their whims. I wouldn’t be surprised if Brunal has already forgotten his agreement. He’s certainly forgotten his share with me.”

“Perhaps he’ll keep his word with me.” I suggest.

“Perhaps.” He seems more than a little dubious. “Or perhaps he’ll just continue on as if he’d never met you. His attention and memory have room for little more than what’s in front of him I’m afraid.”

“Did you know Brunal well?” I ask.

“Well enough back then… I imagine he’s a different man now.” He huffs. “Fifteen years ago he left the troupe to join us. This was when his father was in charge. He had been born among them. All he ever knew. But his father was a bastard, little more than a pirate. Came raiding down from the skies stealing everything that wasn’t bolted down. Brunal decided he had enough of it and came to the temple. He never quite fit in but he seemed happy enough. Then five years later his father died and he decided it was time for him to return. Not sure how he managed it but he changed the group to what it is now. Not exactly law abiding but not nearly as vicious as they used to be.”

“So he left you and that means he’ll leave everyone is that it?”

“More or less.” He confirms. “I’ve had further proof through others he’s done it to. It is unwise to remain here and wait for him but you’ll not be much interested in hearing that I imagine.”

I’m furious at him, confidently dashing my hopes like they were nothing. Then again, maybe they are. 

_Why does this matter so much to you?_ I ask myself.

“If I can figure out your secret others will be able to do the same.” Aurian warns me. “You should leave here while you still can.”

“Eager to get rid of me so soon?” 

“Hardly.” He tells me. “Else I’d let you chase Brunal till you drowned yourself somewhere in the middle of the ocean. You should go to the Western Air Temple instead. They would welcome you. I may be able to escort you there myself. You'll be safe. The Fire Nation won’t care about a Water Tribe fugitive. If you stay here they will catch you one way or another. You’re lucky it hasn’t already happened.”

“I won’t leave without giving him a chance to keep his word.” I promise. Apparently the look I give him is enough to convince Aurian of my conviction.

“Fine then.” He gives in. “I can see you won’t budge. Must be the earthbender in you. Just promise me you won’t try the Stone Trial again till we believe you to be ready.”

I nod. He doesn’t really need to convince me. I won’t be facing that death trap anytime soon.

It takes long enough for my shoulder to heal completely that I give up on the idea of catching up with the troupe. They could be halfway across the world and I certainly didn’t know in which direction I would find them. No, whatever chance I believed I’d had before is gone now. Instead I decide to focus on my training. 

Each day blends into the next. A series repeated again and again. I'm hardly aware of time passing, of the trend of subtlety my training has given me in airbending. The seasons pass but I do not take note until winter.

One morning during a sparring exercise the sun is coming up and a cold wind sends chills down my spine. The last time I had felt the cold like this I lost Hajuk. Has it been a year already? The chill doesn't leave my bones. I tell my master that I am not feeling well, ask to be excused. She takes one look at my face and nods. I make my way to my dorm and do not leave, do not eat, barely sleep for a week. I tell my masters that it is a purification ritual to help fight illness. Aurian looks doubtfully at me but does not question it. The hours are filled with darkness. Building with my every thought. 

It's strange. I had spent so long feeling untouchable when it came to Hajuk. I'd hear his name every day as people called me and not once did I flinch. And yet the cold comes and it's like it's that day again and I have no defense against my vicious grief. It tears into me without mercy. Why this pain again? Am I doomed to relive it year after year? Would it never ease?

I lay in bed, each hour strengthening my desire for him to be hugging me from behind, nuzzling his lips into my neck. I'd forgotten how solid he had made me feel then. How safe. I suppose I had never let myself soak in the pain tearing all that away from me had wrought. I thought I'd become stronger but truly all I had done so far was to run away. How else could I break down so easily to the faintest reminder of that day...?

At last Aurian becomes sick of my... indulgence he likes to call it.

“You wallow in sadness like a sow in mud.” He spits at me with disdain. “Enough is enough. If you stay in here much longer you'll start to grow mold.”

“I've already grown it.” I tell him, half delirious with troubled sleep and no food. “It's more comfortable than you'd think.”

“Well it stinks.” Aurian tries to wave away the smell then jerks his hand up, steepling his fingers. A rush of air lifts me from the ground. “I'm not asking, or suggesting. I'm telling you. Come with me.” I consider disobeying but he bends a gust that drives me walking behind him. It would take more energy to fight him and at this point I just don't have any.

It's so cold. I don't have a coat or cloak or fur to keep warm. The sky has that sort of grey glow that hints at snow. My breath mists in the morning air. Well, at least I think it's morning. It's not like I have been keeping track.

Aurian stops in the middle of a clearing and spins around with a bowl of rice and a cup of... is that milk?

“Where-?”

“No questions.” Aurian demands. “Eat this.” He hands me the bowl. “And drink this.” He hands me the milk. 

“I'm not-!” I try to insist.

“No refutations either!” He cuts in. Then he fixes me with a glare that convinces me that he will in fact force the rice down my throat if I do not eat it myself. I sip at the milk and almost gag at the richness of it. Still it's heavenly. The texture, the smoothness, the cream. I feel it coat the lining of my stomach and there is something oddly comforting about the sensation. Then I take a bite of the rice, expecting the same old feed I'd been given for months.

But there's butter. I'd forgotten about butter. Truly. Instead my culinary world had been dominated by the bland pellets of rice that amounted to little bits of energy. Butter was a figment beyond my wildest dreams. And yet it is here in my mouth. Such savory, lovely, buttery goodness, melting on my tongue. Bringing my taste buds back to life. I wolf the rest down without thinking and look disappointingly at the empty bowl. The milk goes down easier afterward.

“Better, yes?” Aurian smiles.

“Marginally.” I tell him. “Where did you get the butter?”

“I said no questions.” Aurian puts a finger to his lips. “Let us continue.”

“What are we-?” Aurian squeezes his hand into a fist which draws the air from my lungs. I cough and sputter.

“I cannot teach you anything if you will not listen.” He scolds as I recover. I decide that it's not really worth trying to question him further. Lost in the maelstrom of pensive confusion it comes as a surprise when that familiar stone orb looms up in front of me again.

“What are we doing here?” I can't help myself.

Aurian turns and smiles at me, then strikes his palms to the ground to draw the wind down with him. I hear unseen mechanisms creak into life and the iris of the Stone Trial yawns open.

“This.” He tells me. “What else?” Before I can protest he's on his feet and with a spin he bends the air so fiercely around me that I'm drawn irresistibly into the iris. I crash into the ground, dizzy and aching as I push myself up. Aurian is sitting above me, a silhouette cutting into the circle of grey glowing sky.

“If you're going to isolate yourself, might as well be constructive about it.” He tells me. “You have a week to escape the Trial. If you succeed we may continue to wait for Brunal's troupe until you tire of it. If you fail you follow me to the Western Air Temple. Agreed?”

“Do I have any other options?” I ask.

“Nope.” He doesn't have to be so gleeful about it. “Good luck!” He disappears from the iris before it slides closed, leaving me in the dim glow of the luminescent walls.

At first I take it as an invitation to continue to do nothing. When I think about it really my situation hasn't changed much. I'm alone in a dark room with only my thoughts. The only difference is I can't choose to leave. That one simple fact bothers me ever so slightly, like an itch I can't quite scratch. It's not enough to goad me into doing anything but it's enough to make me resent Aurian more than a little. 

Still, it builds. Worsening as I worry at it, scratching until it becomes inflamed and hot and infects my mind until it's all I can think about. I have to get out. Not because I want to, but because some animal instinct deep inside of me can't stand being trapped like this. I remind myself that I could always earthbend out but I find I can't let Aurian's challenge go so easily. I've learned a lot about airbending since my last attempt. Maybe it will help.

I skip the old, simplistic forms I had attempted for so long on my last try, getting a good laugh out of the thought of me being so sure I could do this before. Then I had been so erratic, so desperate, barely dodging out of the way of the traps, not paying attention to what the puzzle was trying to teach me. This time I was in no such hurry. I have time to try and discern a pattern.

Before when I went to spin four or more windmills it seemed to send the whole thing into chaos. And in a way it does. This time however I'm able to avoid the traps and still have time to observe what is going on. The chaos is a distraction, a misdirect that makes it seem that the only way to navigate is to perpetually be in motion, weaving constantly through the multitude of obstacles. But if you pay attention you notice that there are two spots in the center, one on top the other, that are consistently free of any obstacle at all. I weave my way towards them and when I reach it it's like being inside the eye of a storm. The stone spins and stabs and blooms and realigns all around me, only occasionally coming at me at my haven so I have to move to the other safe spot. This gives me enough time to try all sorts of combinations. I may not have figured out the answer yet but it is starting to make sense.

I remain stuck in this limbo for hours, always on the cusp of sussing out the trial's secret but ever it evades me, slinking around a corner or slicing at me like a trap of stone. I cease spinning the mills and the shifting stone slows down til it at last reaches its resting state. Exhausted I collapse on the floor and fall asleep.

 

_I'm in a tower with only one window. The sky outside is fiercely blue, so bright it stabs at my eyes. Somehow the white of the clouds is softer, as if they were holes cut out that the light falls into. I watch them slide across the windowpane, the swirl of their edges beckoning me forward._

_I rest my hands on the sill and continue to watch. They're everywhere. Shifting and swirling and pulsing in a synchronized dance. I look below me and it's still all just sky, my tower stretching out of sight into a blanket of clouds._

_I'm falling. Wind lashing at my face and hair, tears streaming from my eyes. I'm laughing as I fall, or is that screaming? It's hard to tell over the roar of wind in my ears. I hurtle towards the blanket of cloud, falling impossibly fast and yet it doesn't seem to get any closer. Looking up I see the tiny point that is the pinnacle of the tower piercing the sun. It bleeds an orange glow that oozes down the sides of the tower. Coming for me. Looking down again I smack into the clouds and burst through._

_Below me is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen..._

 

I wake to a thunderclap, my dream gone like dew in the morning sun. I hear the drumming of heavy rain against the stone and a steady trickle of water falls steadily from the roof. Apparently whoever designed this hadn't made it waterproof. Already a shallow puddle has gathered underneath me, soaking my clothes and bringing with it a seeping cold. There's no immediate danger but the discomfort is enough to get me going again. Besides how else am I to keep warm? It isn't long before I'm back in my previous limbo, switching between the two safe spots in the shifting stone. I have a hunch that the trick is to somehow get those two zones to merge into one. The puzzle seems to want me to simplify the chaos. In any case it's the only lead I have. I don't know how much time has passed but I am exhausted and starving. Aurian's treats of milk and butter had kickstarted my appetite and now I am ravenous. I can only hope that I find a way to make my theory work. I don't have the time or the will to start back over again.

I take in a deep breath to calm myself, looking about with the same eyes I use when hunting. There's a pattern here, I just need to find it. Looking straight ahead of me I realize that at every fourth revolution of the shifting stones they come together and block the light of the bio-luminescence. Then it opens slowly, revealing a growing arrow pointing outwards. 

I take a look to my side and find that the same thing occurs right after the one in front. In fact in all four directions the same thing happens, one after another in a clockwise circle before I have to dodge to the next safe place above. Here the reverse happens, an arrow that points inward with a cycle that goes counterclockwise. It seems to be telling me the direction in which to bend the air and in what order but I still don't know which windmills to spin and when.

Then I realize the answer is meant to be simple. As I look down at the series of windmills I see that the configuration is arranged in such a way that I could draw the arrows with them. I had thought it was a circle at first but now I could see it is more of a bulging square. If I mimic the movement that the stones are showing me, bending a pinpoint of air to stir the mill behind me and radiating out to spin the opposite corner mill and the four around it, it would draw the same growing arrow with the wind. At least it's worth a try,

While the answer is simple, in practice it is difficult. I have trouble balancing the amount of force necessary to blow the array of mills in front of me while keeping the precision of only spinning the one behind me. It's hard to start the flow of air from such a small point and have it maintain its strength as it widens. Plus I have to bend the sequence of mills necessary to keep the pattern showing itself. It takes hours to get the flow of it all down and still I can't quite get the balance right. Exhausted I start to mess up the pattern, sending traps that push me away from the center. It's time to let it all rest again. I do so and stretch out on my back, sleep pouring into my eyes till finally I close them against it, realizing too late that was its plan all along.

 

_Still falling. I try to remember the beauty I had witnessed before but all see now is carnage. Smoking ruins scattered against a field of charred grass. Corpses so burnt and mangled as to be almost entirely unrecognizable as once living things. But the smell. The burning and the rot makes me gag even from this height._

_As I fall closer I see they are riddled with maggots, hideously large and devouring their putrid skin. The ground trembles and cracks, fire spitting from the wounds. And still I careen towards it. Still laughing. Still screaming._

_I could avoid it all if I only remember how to fly..._

_The ground rushes towards me, writhing in filth and death and fire, its arms open wide in welcome._

 

I wake up with a gasp and in a cold sweat. Or was that the rain still? The storm had subsided but there are still puddles on the floor. I am dizzy from hunger so I slap myself to help maintain focus. I don't know what day it is, or whether it even is day outside but this is the day I figure it out.

Back into my false eyes of the storm. The pattern is easy enough to maintain but no matter how I try to adjust the nuance of the bending I can't get it quite right. I've managed to isolate the one behind me but as I widen it enough to cover the rest the wind is only strong enough to make the other mills twitch slightly. But if I put any more effort into the motion more mills spin behind me. It feels impossible.

Until I remember that the wind can be as stubborn as I am. I smile as I focus on the point of origin for my bending. Instead of pushing it with as much strength as I could dare before overdoing it I decide to try and compress it, swirling the air till it coalesces into an even smaller point. The air then rebels like it always does and goes to burst out in its usual wave. I catch it as it does this and guide it forward, giving it enough strength to spin all the ones I need in front of me. I'm able to do the same for the next one, and the one after that till I'm able to follow through with the entire pattern. Like I suspected after I manage to complete the last one the whole orb shifts so that the stones change their dance, creating a hole where none passes through, the true eye of calm within the chaos I had been waiting for.

Despite the lack of traps it's still difficult to keep within the eye. It's above the ground and I have to launch myself off the edges of the shifting pieces to keep myself afloat within it. I have come to the final phase of the puzzle, I can feel it.

More chaos all around me. However the orb had shifted it managed to change the pattern entirely. It's hard to pay attention having to constantly maintain my perch but still there doesn't seem to be any hint within the movements. 

_There._ It's half an instant but in all the disarray there is a point where the shifting barriers of stone arrange themselves in such a way that there is a clear shot to all of the windmills at the same time all around me. It's not much but it's the only clue I've got. Right before it opens itself again I launch myself into the air, floating at the center of the eye as I gather it into my hands, compressing it like I had done before until it explodes in a wave all around. The wind meets the mills as I intend and as they all spin in lovely unison the shifting stone is finally tamed, retreating into the curved walls that spin on their own, revealing the iris at long last as it opens to a circle of starry sky.

Before it decides to close again or become a figment of my imagination I launch myself from the ground into the open air. I relish the sharp frigid feel of it on my skin, the open breeze exquisitely stabbing at me as I fall back down onto the grass. It feels so wonderfully soft on my bare feet that my eyes water a little. I let myself fall onto my back, laughing all the way down.

“Took you long enough.” Aurian, of course. His head cuts into my vision from above. “You missed the first snow.”

“Like you expected me to beat it.” My throat is dry and hoarse but still it feels good to talk to someone.

“I confess I am both surprised and disappointed.” Aurian smiles as he helps me up. “The Western Air Temple is lovely this time of year.”

“No use trying to convince me.” I warn him. “I will wait for the troupe.”

“Fair enough.” He holds up his hands. “A deal is a deal.”

The elders never mention my feat to the rest of the benders and that seems fair enough considering the trouble I'd caused. It is enough to know that I had solved it even if no one would acknowledge it. That gets me through the winter months as the cold becomes bitter and the liveliness of the temple dies down to a crawl. Snow builds among the towers till the only way to travel between them is between window to window. 

I look in envy at the other benders and their Bison. The fur seems so warm. I wish I had my own but the elders refuse, stating it would be cruel to bond a young Bison to me at my age. If I died before it, which admittedly was likely at this point, it would become uncontrollable. Having been raised in captivity it would struggle in the wild, likely menace towns since it would be used to being around people. They'd have no choice but to put it down.

So I simply suffer through the cold, managing well enough. It is with great relief that I smell a warm wind heralding spring. The ice and snow thaws and melts reluctantly but at last the sun remembers its glory and wipes away the last vestiges of winter.

Soon. Every day that grows warmer brings Brunal and his troupe closer to me. I can't wait to show them the progress I've made. I wonder if Brunal will believe me when I tell him I solved the Stone Trial.

On the exact day a year from when I met the troupe I go out to the place I had found them. It's easy enough to find as Aurian had heard of the place before.

“Used to be a temple to old forgotten gods before our ancestors destroyed it.” He explains.

“Why would airbenders destroy a temple?” I ask.

“We do not believe in gods.” Aurian tells me. “In years past that was enforced most... fervently. We have since learned the error of our ways.”

“I can't imagine an Air Nation that's so... violent.” 

“Many believed it was necessary back then.” He says. “Some still do.”

His directions lead me here, the natural amphitheater with the shallow bowl and rock walls. It is empty when I find it and remains so even when I camp out there for a week. It doesn't surprise me that they are late, just leaves me disappointed. I fly back, figuring that I'll meet them later when they make it there. Once a week I'd go and check on the area, look around for a bit...

But there's nothing... No one...

“It's been over a month since Spring has sprung.” Aurian pleads with me. “You've already waited here too long. Someone will find you out and I will not be able to protect you.”

“Why wouldn't he come back?” I wonder if I'm asking him or Brunal.

“Because he found a woman he fancies?” Aurian offers. “Because the wind blew further to the East? Because he's dead? Who knows? The point is if he were coming here he would've done so already. That troupe is not one to waste good weather.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I know Brunal.” Aurian insists. “I know how the man lives his life. The others follow his lead. Trust me, there is no real plan there.”

“And what if I want that?” I counter.

“Then you missed your chance to join them last year.” His words slap me in the face. I don't want to believe him but I have grown tired of waiting. Before I had run into the troupe I had intended to go much further from the Water Nation. And here I am, still stuck only a couple hundred miles from there.

“I don't want to be stuck here forever.” I sigh heavily.

“You will be if you continue to wait for Brunal.” Aurian presses. “Or you can come with me to the Western Air Temple.”

“I thought you were supposed to give up on that.” I remind him.

“I gave up on being able to force you to go.” He corrects. “Doesn't mean I can't keep trying to convince you.”

“Fine then.” It seems impulsive to give in after waiting so long but the more we talk the more I realize that I'm ready. That I've been ready for a long time to leave this whole place behind. It's past time I moved on. “Lead the way.”

“Now?” He truly is surprised. “I was expecting to have to spend a week convincing you. I'm hardly ready...”

“Just get what we'll need together and let me know when you're ready.” I respond. “I don't want to wait any longer than I have to.” I deploy my glider and lift off, making my way to the hill where the troupe had left me over a year ago. A part of me hopes to find them floating towards me out from the horizon. I get a giant fluffy monster instead.

“Hello Bubo, it's good to see you.” I smile while patting his side. He groans in pleasure.

“We should be all set for our journey.” Aurian blasts up onto the Bison's head. “You ready?”

The sun starts to set into the ocean, throwing orange light across the clouds and lining the edges of the ocean's waves. I breathe in the salt air, hold it for a moment and then let it out.

“Yes.” I tell him, jumping up to Bubo's back. It's a lot easier than when I first tried it out. We lift off and head towards the setting sun but Bubo isn't fast enough to catch up. Darkness falls and we continue to fly into the night with the stars as our guide.


	4. Fire

I wake up on Bubo's back, same as just about every night for the past couple weeks. Islands are hard to come by in this part of the world till you reach the Fire Nation. In my half sleep I think I'm on a hill full of lush white grass. The softest hill in the world. I can't wait to show Hajuk...

That wakes me. It had taken me months to accept he is gone. It's not something I can easily forget. Aurian is dancing across the fur, windmilling his arms to send a stream of air forward. That's how we've managed to fly multiple days without having to land. We're doing the work of Bubo to help him conserve his energy.

“About time you woke up.” Aurian is out of breath. “I'm not as young as I used to be you know.”

“And whose fault is that?” I ask as I get up stretching, readying myself to take over his duties.

“I've spent much of my life trying to figure that out.” He tells me. “For now I'm more concerned with breakfast.” My stomach growls at the mention of a meal. “No use in complaining. You haven't earned your food yet.”

“I might not have come with you if you'd told me the trip would be this grueling.” I groan as I settle into the starting pose.

“And whose fault is that?” Aurian counters, settling into his breakfast. “If a certain someone didn't have a sizable bounty on his head we wouldn't have to skip the usual resting spots.”

“You can't blame me for that now.” I tell him. “You knew that going into this.”

Aurian doesn't answer, just starts to eat. It's the best argument he could've given. I start the forms that call the air forward and continue to maintain it as morning ripens into day. The only thing that gets me through is knowing today is the last day. By sunset we should be among the Fire Nation city-states.

Noon comes at last and I finally earn my lunch. More buttery rice. It is not as sumptuous as when I first tasted it. Especially after these weeks. I'm grateful nonetheless. Once we get to the Western Temple it will be bland fare for however long I decide to stay there.

Even with the help Bubo is exhausted by the time we see land. We descend quickly to the beach and Bubo crashes into the sand, rolling to his side and almost immediately falling asleep.

“I had hoped to make it to the temple tonight.” Aurian says while stroking Bubo's belly. “Looks like Bubo doesn't have it in him. We'll leave him to nap here while we find a place to stay for the night. I saw Granthi in the distance as we were coming down. It's not very powerful among the city-states but they're friendlier than most. Shouldn't be more than a couple miles.”

The trek is short, just as Aurian promised. Up the beach, across some grassy hills and the walls of Granthi appear by the horizon, growing as we near them. I can see two men guarding the gates, mounted on rhino-lizards, probably firebenders. They don't look very welcoming.

“You sure they'll let us stay?” I ask him. “They seem a bit tense.”

“The Fire Nation city-states are always at war with each other.” He informs me. “They have to constantly be on guard, but they're more suspicious of their own than they are of the other nations. Apparently they don't view us as much of a threat.”

“Every nation is busy with its own problems I suppose.” I wonder how the healer's strike ended up back home. Not good more than likely.

As we approach the gates of the city the guards prove their bending by weaving a wall of fire between them. They call out in unison to us.

“State your purpose in the Divine Sovereignty of Granthi.”

“We are two Air Nomads come in search of your famed hospitality, Granthians!” Aurian announces. “Would you not like some of our coin?”

“Air Nomads have no coin.” One guard argues.

“Ah but my comrade is newly joined among our ranks and is in need of purging himself of his material possessions.” Aurian explains.

“Any proof of this?” The other guard seems dubious. I pull out my pouch of coin. It isn't much but it seems to satisfy the guards at least. They nod to each other and pull back their bending.

“Open the gates!” The first one calls. “We've two airbenders looking to invest in our form of entertainment!” They go to check our belongings but seeing as how we have none the search is quick enough.

The attack comes from nowhere. Fire rains down on us from behind. I feel the heat of it reaching for my neck. I manage to throw up a wall of earth behind me before it does. Aurian isn't so lucky.

The fire strikes him right between his shoulders, knocking him to the ground. Before anyone can react a figure leaps on him, driving a sword through the back of his neck. A pool of blood bursts from him as he twitches against the blade and then just... stops.

There is no plan to my next actions. Only fury. I raise two walls beside Aurian's murderer. He fixes me with a startled look but manages to dodge as I bring them in to crush him. He lands on top of the stone and has the gall to smile before breathing a stream of fire at me. I shift the ground beneath my feet to pull me out of its path. I feel its searing heat all too close to my skin. More of them come at me and I sink them into the ground before crushing their heads with boulders. It's hypnotic the way they squish, bursting like melons with shards of bone and viscera spattering everywhere.. By the time I'm done with them Aurian's killer is gone. The rest of the band is in full retreat.

 _Aurian..._ I turn to him but I can't look at him for more than an instant before I feel sick. His head... it's turned the wrong way, the gash in his neck so deep he's almost decapitated. And he's still on fire...

I vomit up the rice I'd had for lunch into a mushy clump on the ground.

“Come on!” One of the guards yells at me, grabbing me by my shoulders and shoving me towards the gate. “They're regrouping for another attack!” I continue forward in a daze, stumbling inside the city, the guards right behind. The gate slams shut but I can hear cries beyond it as the attack continues.

“Avidya is on us already?” I hear someone cry out from above. “They were meant to be two days out at least!”

“To hell with reports! They're here! That's it! To arms!” Another roars. Horns ring out on the battlement. It's all happening so fast. How did I end up alone in the middle of a siege? How did I lose Aurian so quickly? He wasn't supposed to be a friend but this was just too brutal. 

An armored woman with spiked shoulders appears in front of me and puts her hand on my shoulder. I look into her eyes, a tawny brown. There's pity in those eyes, but also fierce determination.

“I know you just lost your friend...” She starts gently.

“He wasn't a friend.” I insist.

“Fine. Lover. Whatever.” Short temper this one, almost all her gentleness has evaporated. “I have questions I need to ask you.”

“Go on.” Depending on what they are I don't see why I shouldn't answer them. 

“I couldn't help noticing that your... companion lied.” She starts her questioning. “He said you were an airbender. Obviously you're an earthbender.”

“Yes, he lied.” I admit, trying not to smile at the irony. It's easy in my present mood. “It's a much easier story to explain than why an earth and airbender are traveling together.”

“True.” She muses. “If I didn't know better I would've thought you two were meant to act as a distraction as a prelude to attack.” She studies my reaction closely, I honestly have no idea what expression I have on my face. My mind feels murky, fuzzy, unable to sort out the details of my consciousness at the moment.

“But seeing how they killed your man, and how you killed them...” She seems disturbed herself remembering. “Well I just can't believe anyone could be that dedicated to a trick.”

“What do you want from me?” I ask her.

“Look, I don't care about who you are or why you came here.” She cuts right to the quick. “You're here and we're under attack and I need bodies on the wall. If Avidya breaches the gates they will kill everyone inside. I can use an earthbender to help defend the city. Do you want to lend a hand or do I shove you in a cell until this is all over?”

“Will you let me out after?”

“No.” Her frown is very convincing.

“All right.” I agree at last. The fog makes it hard to think. “What exactly do you want me to do?”

“We need defenses.” She demands. “Most of our fighting force has been sent off on a raiding mission. Too good a prize to pass up. My guess is Avidya was counting on that and took advantage. Our raiders should return by midday tomorrow. We just have to hold out until then.”

“Get me to the walls.” The fog is starting to lift from my mind. Once there it should be easy enough to build what we need. 

“Soldiers!” She orders two men milling about, they stop immediately and stand at attention. “Take this man to the highest point among our walls immediately!”

“Yes, Firelord Azriel!” They agree in unison before looking to me. “This way!” 

_Firelord?_ I'm intrigued. I had thought the woman a captain but apparently she is the queen of this little hill. Hopefully I can use that.

Following the guards is like following a whirlwind. Though the city is small it is packed tightly together. Without the guards' help I would have been instantly lost in the maze of twists and turns within it. We come upon a tall, narrow tower. They mount the spiral steps two by two so I follow in suit and we quickly reach its top.

Below is chaos. Rivers of fire run their courses through the grassy fields. There is some fighting but it is unfocused, confused. As if neither side were quite expecting things to turn out this way.

“The vanguard has done a good job ousting us from our defensive foothold.” One of the guards explains. “Normally we set up a perimeter to defend against a siege but we've gotten caught with our pants down this time. We'll be like a turtle-duck on it's back when the real assault comes.” He points out in the distance where I can see a faint dust cloud rising.

“I guess I'll have to get started then.” I say as I reach into the earth around me. I cross my arms and stone spikes erupt from the ground, interweaving like a wall of thorns. I continue, reaching as far as I can around me until I have a portion drawn. A few more trips around the wall completes the circle, trapping much of the vanguard inside. Cut off and unable to retreat the soldiers of Granthi make quick work of them. I collapse, exhausted just as I hear the rumble of siege engines coming into range.

 _Bad timing..._ I tell myself before passing out.

 

A slap brings me back from my dream. Before I can recall anything it evaporates from my memory. Above me is Firelord Azriel, her face contorted in fury.

“Wake up you lazy brute! Your wall is falling apart and they're getting ready to attack the city!” She drags me upright. “We need you! Now!” Without waiting for a response she throws me from my bed so that I'm forced to land on my feet. When did I get into a bed?

Soldiers catch me as I stumble and guide me outside. It's the middle of the night and something crashes into the wall in front of us, rumbling like a thunderclap. I can see fire within the city walls and I start to realize that Azriel might not be overreacting. 

I'm back at the tower and the view has only gotten worse. The wall of thorns I had bent before is now rubble lined with fire. There are breaches everywhere and each one has a catapult rolling through to advance the attack on the walls. Already there are chips and dents in the face of the wall below me. It won't last long under this kind of pressure.

“Take out the catapults.” She orders me.

“I can't take them all!” I counter.

“You don't have to!” She growls. “We are not helpless! Just help us get the ball rolling!”

 _That gives me an idea..._ I hold out my hands, anchoring myself to the pieces of rubble below us. I lift them up and push them together, interlacing my fingers. The rubble floats and compresses together into a great round boulder and I launch it along the ringwall. It tears into their line, crushing man and catapult alike while bouncing against what's left of both walls. It gets through a good quarter of the circle before it embeds itself in the ruins of the thorny wall to my left. 

“I didn't expect you to take me quite so literally.” Azriel admits. “Still, I like the way you think.” She looks to me and smiles. “You're pale.” She notices. I can feel my legs shaking. “You've routed their line for us. We can take care of the rest.” 

Two men help me down the stairs and back to the hospital bed I'd been in. Only now do I realize that's where I had been. I wonder why earthbending takes so much out of me. Maybe it's because I've never been properly trained. I don't have the energy to think about it further as I fall again into oblivion.

 

Apparently they don't need me for the rest of the night, nor the battle for that matter. I wake midday to the sound of trumpets at the raiding party's return to everyone's desperate cheer. Granthi's soldiers had harried the invaders all throughout the night, thinning out the attacking force at great cost to their numbers as they closed in. The invaders even managed to crack through the wall. A top portion crumbled enough to serve as a rocky hill. When the raiders return Avidian forces are ill prepared for a defense and with the city guard they tear through the invading force. Very few are left alive to surrender. Firelord Azriel summons me to her throne room. From what I hear every city-state has one, each more opulent than the last, ever seeking to top one another. Hers is no exception.

In an octagonal tower in the center of the city is a seat carved entirely out of pearl, smooth and intricate with flames that seemed to be lifting her up from the floor. The ceiling is a series of triangles that come to a point above her head, each panel fitted cunningly with mirrors so that it looks as if we were trapped within a giant ruby. With the torches the effect is stunning. They flicker in sconces that hang off the square red pillars in each corner. Gold lines everything it can. The whole room feels as if it's breathing.

“Welcome to my sanctum, brute.” Azriel purrs from her perch.

“My name is Manu.” I've decided that I no longer want to run away from my name.

“Manu...” She muses on it. “Yes, I think I can remember that.”

“Why have you called me here?” I ask. I'm in no mood for games. Azriel shoots a glance at me, as sharp and intense as a cat on the prowl, her tawny eyes ablaze. She smiles.

“You see that's why I like you, Manu.” It's amazing how she can make it sound like she didn't just learn it a moment ago. “You are so outside of the Fire Nation minutia. So refreshing to hear from a perspective that does not fear or hate me.”

“I notice you haven't answered my question.” I press her.

“A Firelord answers in her own time in her own throne room.” She bats at the words with her tongue. “You may amuse but I remain in charge.” She takes a long draw from her cup to cement her point.

“You've proven yourself useful, earthbender.” She finally deigns to answer. “I always have need for useful people.”

“I thought the Fire Nation didn't value the other bending forms?” I point out.

“We don't view them as a threat.” Azriel corrects. “Although you've certainly convinced me otherwise. Your solution for the siege was so elegantly simple. Worked better than I thought possible. Imagine what you could do if you could just stay awake.”

“I'm not up for besieging other city-states if that's what you have in mind.” I protest.

“Nothing so crude.” Azriel smiles and it makes my skin crawl. “Sieges waste resources on both sides. I intend to use a more subtle touch. Your talents can be put to good use.”

“And why would I be interested in helping you?”

“Simple.” She says and the shimmering in her tawny eyes goes still. “You have no choice in the matter.”

I want to argue with her. I'm sure there are reasons if I could just think of them. But all I can think of is Aurian choking as his life's blood pours out of him. Where am I to go then? Her smile deepens, like a cat sure of catching its prey.

“I suspect there is a reason why you lied about your earthbending.” She declares. “My guess is that you're hiding from someone or something important. Your companion probably was your ticket to wherever you two were going after this. Without him I imagine you don't have anywhere else to go.”

 _She's right._ I admit to myself. _Well... almost..._ It wasn't that I couldn't go anywhere else, but that I wouldn't. With Aurian gone I realize he had been the only thing keeping me with the monks. I didn't want to go to the Western Temple, to more strangers. And I couldn't face the Southern Temple again, to tell them how Aurian was killed trying to help me. So yes, Aurian was my ticket to enduring the Western Temple and there isn't anywhere else that I want to go.

“What exactly did you have in mind?” I figure she doesn't intend to give me much honest work. Not that I haven't done such in the past. Am I really ready to return to that life again? 

“In due time.” Azriel assures me. “I merely wanted to gauge your interest for now.” She takes another deep drink from her cup and waves me away. I turn to go.

“Actually there is something you can do for me in the meantime.” I sense something heavy tossed in the air and I spin around just in time to catch it, a hefty bag of coin. That cat smile again... “Take a look at my wall for me will you? This allowance should more than cover you for the job. I expect top-notch work from an earthbender.”

As I leave I feel... jostled... perturbed. I have a sense that so much more occurred in that room than I had seen on the surface. I can hardly imagine what and it's making me feel as if I were balancing on a thin wire with a chasm yawning wide below me. Something tells me I should take care around this Firelord.

The wall is unsurprisingly a mess. What isn't cracked is broken entirely. I save what I can and scrap the rest, putting up cliffs of earth to patch in between the salvageable parts. It's not exactly precise engineering but it holds. I test its integrity myself and it's just as efficient as a fortified wall. The process takes a week.

I expect to hear from Azriel but in the ensuing weeks I find myself oddly without work. I can't remember the last time I had nothing to do. No chore or mission to fulfill. I sort of float along, buying my keep with my gambling winnings. I start to get drunk more often than not which seems to help my luck at first. Until it doesn't. For a while I get into debt which leads to scraps in the alley. I'm left a bit bruised and cut from them but the others are much worse off. Eventually the debtors stop calling. Only then does Azriel summon me.

“Welcome, earthbender!” She smiles on her seat of pearl. 

“You know my name.” I insist. Azriel laughs, covering her mouth politely as she does so.

“Of course I do.” She purrs. “Who could forget one such as yourself, Manu?” She gave that away much too easily. Is it because she had caught her prey already?

“Rumor is across town that there's a rough and tumble earthbender causing trouble in the seedier parts of my city.” A servant with a silver tray walks up to her. Azriel daintily picks one of the absurdly elegant hors d'oeuvers with her sharp fingernails and pops it into her mouth, clearly relishing the taste. She doesn't offer me one. “Care to explain?”

“Some of your citizens feel the need to attack me.” I tell her. “I'm merely defending myself.”

“Oh well that can't be to whole story now can it?” Her eyes flash at me like a spark erupting into flame. “From what I hear you've been gambling quite a bit in those seedy areas. Racked up quite a debt.”

“It's not a problem anymore.” I assure her.

“Of course it isn't.” She confirms. “Because I have paid those debts.” My breath catches when she says this.

“I was handling it just fine.” I say through gritted teeth.

“Oh certainly.” Another servant appears, this time with a single glass set into a bone stem carved into the shape of a serpent. A red liquid inside. She lifts it up to drink, staining her lips red. “The whole town is talking about your exploits. They say you fight like a cornered wolverine-wasp. Very impressive.”

She pauses but I don't respond. Clearly she has this whole interaction planned out. I'd rather wait for her to reach her point than play along any further.

“Did you not suspect they would slit your throat while you slept?” She asks. It almost sounds innocent.

“I would've dealt with it.” I huff, unable to stand the sting to my pride.

“I see.” Clearly she doesn't. “So when thugs came to knife you in the middle of the night while you were passed out drunk I shouldn't have stopped them? Should I have just let them come, assured that in your stupor you would've woken in time?”

I feel it is unwise to speak further.

“I take your silence as agreement that I would not make such an error in judgment.” She smiles again and a drop of red draws a line down from the corner of her lip. “So not only have I paid off your debts I have saved your life. I do not know how it works in the Earth Provinces but by Fire Nation custom I would believe you owe me.”

“I saved your city.” I argue. “Rebuilt its walls.”

“Yes and you were paid quite handsomely for that.” She points out. “Had you spent it more wisely you could still be living off of it.” I try not to smile at the irony that a woman who has her many servants tend to her most exquisite desires is lecturing me about living frugally. 

“Is that why you summoned me here?” I ask her. “To reprimand me?”

Her laugh is sharp and cutting, more chilling than comforting. “Oh I missed you, Manu. No one speaks to me quite like you do.” She beckons me to her chair and I cautiously step forward. Seated on her throne and pedestal she is taller than I am but not by much. I realize that she's actually quite short when you really look at her. She cups my chin in her hand, her eyes boring unflinching into my own as she strokes my neck with her sharp, sharp nails.

“I have a proposition for you.” She snaps her hand away, nicking my neck with her forefinger. I wince and she smiles as she places her glass beneath the wound. It's a shallow cut. I've done worse to myself while shaving. Only a few droplets fall into it before it starts to heal and she pulls the glass away.

“What are you doing?” I demand.

“Drawing up terms for a contract.” She lifts up her glass. “This, is dragonblood wine. Incredibly rare. You have to drain the blood of a living dragon then wait nearly a decade for the inherent toxins to coagulate and separate like curds. What's left is an intoxicating brew.” She takes another sip, licking her lips. 

“Even I only have one bottle. Besides the throne it is a symbol of utmost authority among the Fire Nation city-states, only to be used for contracts of grave importance. In drinking your blood mixed with a dragon's I invoke the sacred compact.”

I don't know how to feel at this point. The flames on the pillars seem more intense, more vibrant than usual, making the ceiling look like a swirling vortex of lava. Shadows and light spin together in a mesmerizing circle.

“What do you want from me?”

“I've been watching you these weeks in my city.” Her voice is quiet, serious. “It seems to me that you do not quite fit in with the domesticated lot. You tend to start trouble. You also have impressive fighting skills and do not seem to balk at killing someone.” It feels strange to not hear a hint of accusation in her tone as she says this. “I can use someone of that persuasion. Tell me, have you ever been an assassin?”

She knows the answer before I speak, before I can even think to lie. I can see it in her eyes, looking not a little like fire themselves.

“Yes.” I admit. I had killed for the Water Tribes before. There were no lack of enemies. “I'm not sure I wish to return to that life.”

“Ah” She says. “But you haven't even heard of your first assignment.” She snaps her fingers and a servant, I honestly can't tell if it's the same one from before or another, comes forward with a folio. Azriel tears it open and pulls out a drawing of a man. A man I most definitely remember.

“You recognize him, yes?” Azriel asks me.

“He's the one who killed Aurian.” I glare at his face. The artist had captured his likeness well. Those dead laughing eyes. How absolutely average he looks. Unremarkable. Unmistakable.

“He is Gonan, a fierce warrior from Avidya.” Azriel explains. “Now, Avidya is weakened from their failed assault on our city but they did not put all their eggs in one basket. They left behind a reasonable defense force in case we managed to retaliate. However they are mostly hired swords with ties to Gonan himself. Looks as if he wants to take a run at being Firelord.”

“Is that legal?” 

“In the Fire Nation might is right.” She tells me. “In any case I'm not interested in what's legal, I'm interested in what threatens me and as of now Gonan is it. If we take him out I imagine much of his forces will be hard to keep in line. Then we can strike.

“So what do you say?” Azriel offers. “I give you a chance to avenge your fallen friend and you help my city-state into a stronger position of power. It seems like a win-win to me.”

“What exactly are the terms of this contract?” 

“You will be bound to me as my personal assassin and I to you as your patron.” She explains. “I will point your blade to my enemies and must reward you in equal measure to your success in taking down your target. This will be as long as I choose to retain you in my service or when I fail to reward you properly. Then you are well within your rights to claim my life. Fair enough, no?”

“It sounds like a form of slavery.” I point out.

“Only in the way that we are enslaved to each other.” She corrects. “You do not understand. This transaction elevates your status to one equivalent to Firelord. It is a tradition that is taken very seriously among my people. Should either of us fail in our duties to one another there is no doubt that justice will swiftly be done.”

I do not know Fire Nation customs well. In the Water Tribes the Fire Nation city-states were rarely discussed. They were so consumed with squabbling amongst themselves that they were of no concern to anyone outside their realm. Truthfully I would not know if Azriel were making this up or not. But something about it feels... right. It's crazy enough to be true in regards to ancient traditions. There are plenty among the Water Tribes who practice similar rituals. Strange and ancient oaths that must be obeyed. Also, I really want to kill this Gonan. I can see his smile as he leaped away so casually after brutalizing Aurian. In any case I don't have any other plans for myself

“I'll do it.” I announce and she smiles that cat smile again. This time it doesn't bother me as I feel I am falling for the trap deliberately. I'm not sure if that makes it better but I find I do not care. She makes a shallow cut into her own neck, holding the glass to the wound until a few drops fall inside. Then she holds the glass out, an attendant already at her side dressing the cut with ointment and a bandage. You would think her life is in danger the way her servant works.

I take the cup and drain it. It is a heavy drought, thick as molasses with a sharp, acrid, coppery taste. And yet at the same time it's almost sweet, a deep rich sweetness that only builds the more the liquid lingers on my tongue.

“And so it is done.” Azriel proclaims. A servant comes to take the glass from me and disappears. “Your blood and mine are mingled as one and as such our lives are intertwined. I welcome you into my service.”

“Just tell me how I can kill this Gonan.”

Her smile deepens as she draws out more documents from the folio, detailing a plan that will get me close to him.

 

It takes weeks of course. Not that Gonan is particularly hard to find. The man likes to strut about Avidya like he's Firelord already. Azriel honestly doesn't know how the current Firelord allows it. But of course this always makes him a conspicuous presence. Not someone easy to get rid of quietly. The people of the city loved him and although weakened by their failed campaign Granthi wasn't faring much better. Neither could afford another war. Azriel wants me to kill him without raising suspicion. Tricky business.

The first hurdle is making it into the city itself. After their attack they have become rightfully paranoid. Only those already known to the Avidya and essential trade are let inside. I'll have to find my way in. I suppose I could fly over under cover of night if I really want but I think it would be better if I could hide in plain sight while tracking Gonan. That means getting in legitimately. Or at least make the guards think it is legitimate.

I think about it for hours, trying to find a way to integrate myself into some sort of trade group that is intending to enter the city. However none are looking for anyone new and I am not willing just yet to kill someone who isn't involved with my target. 

I laugh when I find the answer. It comes to me as I notice the amount of wounded making their way inside. Funny how an identity I had long run away from becomes the key for me now.

I'd carried my old Water Tribe clothes with me for years, forever a padding at the bottom of my pack. They're old and faded but in good condition. They feel so loose and strange on me now. I wonder how I ever felt comfortable with the flowing, fur-lined robes. I can only hope the guards don't notice my discomfort as I walk up to them.

“Halt, outlander!” One cries, holding out his hand and lighting a small orb of fire in it. “We are not accepting visitors at this time, nor do we have provisions to sell you.”

“Are you not looking for healers?” I ask them, hoping I am sounding meek. “I am a waterbender trained in the art. You city-states seem in constant need of it.”

“I would see proof of such first.” His companion next to him states, holding out his arm which sports a nasty gash. I pull the water from the skin at my hip and flow it over him. It surprises me how quickly it all comes back to me. It has been years since I've bent water. Without blood anyway. In a way it feels like coming home. 

I pulse it through his wound, marrying it with the blood beneath the clot to mix and encourage the flesh to grow and heal. It would have been better had I gotten to it earlier but I can tell by the look of relief on his face that he's grateful nonetheless. 

“He's real.” The guard confirms. “Thank you, outlander.”

“We've been getting many wounded since the raids started.” His companion tells me. “Ever since Granthi other city-states have circled us like vultures. We've fended them off well enough but not without cost...”

“I'll have to confirm it with our captain but I believe we can use your talents.” He goes to report and it looks as if he's correct. The captain comes herself to see me inside the city walls. I follow her inside. First hurdle surmounted.

She leads me to a large flat building. A hospital. I can tell from the moans coming from inside. Without a word the captain bows and leaves me to my work. I dive into it completely, making it the entirety of my focus. The second hurdle is being accepted among the community. This will take time and until it happens I will only be regarded with suspicion. I can't be seen to have any interest in the slightest in Gonan. That isn't to say I do not see him.

He swaggers across town like a cock among hens. It would be almost funny if everyone else didn't take it seriously. They light up when they see him and clap him on the back. He leaves laughter in his wake. I can see why Azriel considers him a threat. I couldn't even tell who the true Firelord is they are so inconspicuous by comparison. He's even struck up conversation with me, thanking me for taking care of his boys.

Hurdle two surmounted. And surprisingly the start of hurdle three, getting close to Gonan. The man simply insists his presence upon everyone. While it takes care of the immediate problem it also makes him impossible to isolate. There is always someone in his retinue be it his men, his fans, or his lovers. He has appetite for plenty it seems, though not for men. A part of me is relieved. I don't like the prospect of seducing someone I would have to kill. 

_So how do I do it?_

I notice that he drinks a lot. My time with my monks has thinned my blood a bit but I'd gotten some practice in Granthi. As long as I take care I imagine I can use that to my advantage. I go to find him at one of his usual haunts, a clean place with good ale. I'm on my second pint by the time Gonan comes in, which ruins whatever buzz I had been cultivating. The tavern greets him as he walks in. It takes him a while before he reaches the bar where I am standing.

“Ah, the waterbender.” He says with a grin. If I didn't hate him so thoroughly I might've found it charming. “I didn't know they let you out of the hospital.”

“Been getting less wounded in lately.” I tell him truly. “It seems as if the raids are finally ebbing.”

“They're starting to realize we're not the easy pickings they thought we were.” Gonan says, lifting his mug in the air. I clink my own against his and we drink deep. At least, Gonan does. I swallow a sip and let the rest flow back into my mug. 

“Thanks in part to you!” He gasps, coming up for air. “I cannot thank you enough for what you've done for my men. We would have far fewer to defend the walls if you had not come.”

“I only do my duty.” I look at my mug, my hands clasped around it, shaking in rage. It's all I can do to hold on. I don't want him here happy. Grateful for all the help I have given him. His smile reminds me of the one he had given to me after mangling Aurian. In fact, it makes me wonder how he doesn't recognize me. Perhaps he has so many in his life he simply doesn't pay attention.

“Tell me, what brings you from your icy home to our fiery battlement?” His eyes, so dark as to be black, pin me with their intensity. Perhaps he recognizes me after all. Still, no use in giving away the game just yet.

“I'm a healer.” I lie. I've claimed too many lives to be considered that. Not if I lived to be a hundred and spent every waking moment tending to the sick and wounded. “There are plenty to help the Tribes. The Earth Provinces have their occasional squabbles but nothing like how you among the Fire Nation live. So many of you die each day. It's a wonder your Nation still endures.”

“We are an ambitious people.” Gonan admits. “Each with our own goals and self interest. Until those align we fight for the power to live according to how we wish.”

“You could always try talking to one another.” I point out. He laughs deep at that.

“What like your Council of Elders?” He scoffs. “They hardly come to an agreement and from what I hear, are barely able to keep from coming to blows. Imagine what would happen if firebenders were involved with something like that?”

“To an ambitious and paranoid people.” I call for a toast, flicking open a vial in my pocket as I do so. Gonan happily obliges and goes to clink my mug. As the foam of our beer shoots up I bend the contents of my vial into his drink. Dark, bitter stuff but the flavor should blend well enough with the alcohol and his inebriation. He confirms it by yet again drinking deep.

 

It isn't till the next morning that he comes to my door at the hospital, looking near death. I have to hide my smile as I go to greet him.

“What's wrong?” I'm surprised I'm able to sound so concerned.

“You tell me.” He groans as I lead him to an open bed. Today the hospital is mostly empty. “At first I thought I drank too much but not even my first hangover was this bad.” As if on cue he vomits immediately, a violently yellow gush of sickness that splatters on the floor next to him. I place my hand on his forehead, wipe the vomit away from his mouth with a cloth.

“Well you definitely have a fever.” I tell him. 

_Good._ I think to myself. The poison must have latched onto his insides. In the swamps not far from Granthi there is a tiny leech-worm that makes its home under a rotting fungus. It lives there as a deterrent for predators as no one but themselves would eat something so grotesque and poisonous. This is because this is the larval stage for what would become a dragon-mantis fly and this is how it protects its young. Many of the larvae perish consuming the fungus. Not all inherit the immunity to its poison. But those who do fill themselves up to bursting with it and form a cocoon. In its pupa state the leech-worm essentially becomes a venomous liquid waiting to be formed. It is a pity that it is such an effective toxin to incapacitate someone with. The dragon-mantis fly is a rare beauty. In it's adult stage it becomes almost regal with it's fine, scythe-like claws and its elegant wings like stained glass, patches of red and white that glow in sunlight. But I had need of its venom.

“Help me.” He pleads and I give him a saccharin smile.

“I'll do my best.” I assure as I poison him further with my tinctures. No one protests as I pronounce his illness as some contagious and deadly strain of something or other. I call it Folly Syndrome. It only gets worse of course. As it is contagious it conveniently affords him a private room in the hospital. Perfect for my needs.

At first it's easy. My rage dulls away any sense of compassion as he gets sicker. He groans in pain. I don't blame him. With the amount of venom I've been feeding him I imagine his insides must feel like they are on fire. He asks me when it will stop. I feign my best sympathetic look as I tell him it will most likely get worse before it gets better. It certainly gets worse.

He begs me to kill him and that's when the illusion breaks. It's difficult to keep angry at a man so full of pitiful anguish that he begs for death. I ease back on the poison, debate if all of this is worth it. He feels a little better, even manages a queasy smile now and then. I walk out, almost convinced to stop what I'm doing. That is, till I hear a familiar deep, rumbling groan in the distance. I look up to see the silhouette of a great flying beast high up in the sky. 

_Bubo..._ In my grief over Aurian I had completely forgotten about the Sky Bison. I bite my lip, holding back tears as I watch him circle the sky, his cries so sad... so lonely... so desperate... Next to that my loss means nothing. He passes across the full moon and disappears into the night. That's when I decide that tonight Gonan will die.

It's long after dark. Those not heading to the town inn have descended into deep sleep. I watch the door of the hospital in complete silence, looking down both ends of the street to see if anyone is coming. It's empty, at least as far as I can tell in the dark. I had decided earlier not to use the front entrance. Instead I figured I'd risk using my airbending and go in through the second floor window I had left unlocked before I left. Taking a deep breath I run across the street to a side alley and launch myself into the air with a burst of wind. I overestimate the force I need and pass the window, flailing as I fall. Thankfully I manage to grab hold of the window's ledge on the way down. I can only hope I do not make too much noise as I crash into the wall below then scramble, pushing the window open as I pull myself up and over the ledge and into the hospital hallway. I freeze, my heart in my throat as I listen for the slightest sound of someone coming my way. For now it seems I'm safe.

I sneak my way toward Gonan's room. It's easy to avoid the night staff as they tend to stay clear of the area, afraid they'll catch his disease. When people marveled that I did not get sick myself I told them I had developed an immunity after contracting it when I was younger and survived... barely. The people of Avidya are astoundingly gullible.

Inside Gonan is sleeping. I can tell by how loud he is snoring. I was too merciful when I had stopped giving him the poison. How quickly he's become well enough to sleep through the night. I suppose it will make taking his life the more satisfying, now that he's healthy enough to care. I decide to disturb his sleep in a most disturbing fashion. I can sense his pulse, the flow of his life as it courses throughout his body. So I reach out and take hold of it.

He wakes immediately, his eyes wide and white as he stares in fear at me.

“Doctor, what are you-?” He stops himself. “You!” I can see the recognition in his face. “You're that earthbender that almost killed me in Granthi! I recognize you now that you wear your rage out in the open.” I wonder what my expression is at this moment. I honestly can't even feel my face. “But how? I've seen you bend water.”

“There is much you do not know and will never find out.” I tell him.

“Is that supposed to scare me?” He asks.

“No it's just true.” I tell him. “It doesn't matter if it scares you or not.”

“What is this witchcraft you've got me in?" He demands trying and failing to keep the fear out of his voice. “Let me go.”

“I won't” I assure him. “And I won't tell you what this is. It is my secret and I'll be damned if I share it with the likes of you. You simply will have to live with not knowing and then die.” I've had enough talking. I pull at his blood and he shudders in pain as I start to form the threads and flow them to me.

“I imagine that's what Aurian felt in the seconds it took for him to die after being mangled by your blade.” I suggest to him. “What for? Not for need. He was an old, gentle man. In all my time with him I didn't see him harm another once. And yet you killed him. And enjoyed it. You have no idea the pain you've caused. I suppose it's a mercy that you never will.”

I have been drawing from him intensely, my anger boiling so I don't care how much it must hurt him to feel his life's blood drained from his whole body at once. He makes a sickeningly desiccated gasp and is quiet, his eyes glossy and dead as the rest of him. This is the only time I ever felt satisfied in taking a life. The emotion stabs at the core of my soul, tearing out a piece I know I'll never be able to get back.

The usual fever comes and many fear my immunity to be overstated. I let them speculate as I recover, wondering how I will learn how to firebend. I stay sicker longer this time, more violently ill. Probably a side effect of the poison I had been giving him. When I finally get over it I am gaunt and easily winded. Though I had intended to return to Granthi as soon as possible I need to regain my strength in order to do so.

The next few days are filled with food and exercise. I gorge myself on extravagant meals and do my best to rebuild my endurance and muscle. It's slow going at first but by the end of the third day I'm getting the hang of it. Another week or two and I'll be able to make the trip back.

A short man with a fancy headdress approaches me as I am doing one of my strength exercises, lifting a boulder with my arms and walking it while in horse stance across the alleyway. I'm about halfway across before he steps right in front of me, making me almost drop my boulder on his foot.

“Can I... help you...?” I ask between breaths. In a way I'm grateful for his interruption.

“Oh no you have helped enough.” He says, oddly jolly for some reason. “I came here to express my gratitude.”

“For what?” I ask.

“For helping me with my problem.” He seems a little offended that I don't know what he's talking about.

“I'm sorry.” I know that I shouldn't complete my sentence but I just can't help myself. “Who are you?” He puffs himself up, bringing out all the indignance he can muster, then he deflates, unable to hold up the facade.

“I am Firelord of Avidya.” He declares sadly. I try very hard not to laugh. Succeed mostly too except when I have to cough to cover up the last little bit that leaks out. “You got rid of the filthy pretender. I wanted to thank you personally.”

“I don't-” 

“No need to pretend.” The Firelord quashes my protests before they begin. “Who do you think paid Firelord Azriel to send you?”

“Wait.” I'm trying to catch up with everything that's happening. “You paid Azriel?”

“Well, yes.” He makes it seems like it's such an obvious thing for him to do. “How else could I get him out of the way?“ I can't help it this time, I burst out laughing right in his face which turns a bright shade of vermilion.

“You are a fool.” I tell him. “Gonan was the only thing keeping this city afloat. You've given her exactly what she wanted and paid her to do so. You'll see her at your door soon enough.”

This firelord doesn't take too kindly to my revelation and promptly sicks his guards on me. I let them drag me out of the city. No need to cause a scene when I was planning on leaving anyway. Maybe a bit sooner than I was comfortable doing so but I can make do.

The trip back is grueling but uneventful. Takes twice as long due to my weakened state and having to waste time foraging for my food. When I finally get back to Granthi the guard brings me straight to Azriel.

“You look terrible.” She tells me as I enter her throne room. Seeing my reflection in one of the roof mirrors I can't really argue. A servant comes with two glasses of wine this time. Azriel takes the first and waves the second to me. I raise my eyebrow before my glass. “What?”

“You have never once offered me anything in our dealings together.”

“I told you our contract elevates your status to that of a Firelord.” She smiles and for once I don't feel entirely like she is considering me as her prey. She still manages to make it intimidating. “It is no longer beneath me to share food and drink with you.” 

“To superiority.” I toast. Azriel seems to not notice the sarcasm as she heartily returns the toast. The wine is smoky sweet and goes straight to my head.

“I must congratulate you on your performance.” She purrs, luxuriating in her throne. “You managed to kill the bastard without anyone suspecting you. Brilliant.” Another servant comes with a tray of some fancy appetizers that Azriel digs into and invites me to do the same. They are absurdly delicious. Somehow her cook had made a sort of meat that was more like a cream, topped with an intense spice that is somehow just as delicious as it is painful. It is exquisite. I marvel that she eats like this every day.

“I must ask, however.” She murmurs, seemingly unable to focus. “How did you manage to impersonate a waterbending healer?”

“People are naturally superstitious.” I'm amazed at how quickly I come up with the lie. “Also especially optimistic when it comes to believing something can save their loved ones.”

“I do not disagree exactly.” Azriel drains her cup and a servant appears instantly to refill it. She does not do so for me. “But I must tell you that I have reliable sources that claim to have seen you bending water. Or at least you were very convincing. Tell me how you did it.” She wasn't asking. That much is clear.

“I don't know how to explain...” It isn't untrue.

“You mean you don't want to explain.” She cuts right to the quick and leaps from her seat, sending a jet of flame right at my face. I react instinctively and wrap the fire in a current of air, draining its power and momentum till it is snuffed out. I relish in the naked dumbfounded expression on Azriel's face. So she is human after all.

“What is this?” She demands.

“I am what you call...” I explain. “Unique.”

“Is that all?” She laughs. “You can bend more than one element can't you?” I consider for a moment denying it but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to explain how I was able to counter her fire. As an answer I draw the wine left in my cup and stream it to my mouth. Her laughter crescendos into a level bordering on hysteric. 

“I cannot believe this.” She gasps. A servant comes forward with a tray of smoked meat wrapped around itself in such a way as to resemble a rose. She waves it to me before eating it herself. I look upon her dubiously.

“I give you an unprecedented honor and you spit it back in my face?” She seems truly offended. “You are a creature of great magnificence. I should revere you as I would a god among men!” A servant comes to present her with her own wine glass. None is offered to me.

“And yet it occurs to me...” She drains the wine glass in one slow series of gulps. “That legally you are in my service.”

“Do you intend to enslave me?”

“Nothing so crude.” She waves the thought away. “I don't think I could force you to do anything you don't want to do. And here I thought I had you wrapped around my finger. Meanwhile you've been the one manipulating me the whole time.”

“You give me too much credit.” I correct her. “I've been winging it for as long as I can remember.” The more I think back the more my statement rings true. It's an overwhelming realization.

“That makes the whole thing even more impressive.” She laughs. It's odd to find someone who enjoys being deceived so much. “Do you have any idea what you'd be capable of with the right support?”

“I could use a good firebending teacher.” I admit.

“You can firebend as well?” She looks at me, astonished.

“I haven't been able to yet.” I say. “I should but I haven't the slightest idea how it works.” I had tried on my way back from Avidya many times but it's hard to figure out how to bend something that isn't there already. All of the other elements were around me when I went to learn them. Even when I couldn't wrap my head around it they were still there. I don't have a clue as to how to bring something like that out of myself like firebenders do. I can't even sense the flames around me any better than I used to. Could it not have worked this time?

“Really now?” Azriel brings forth a fiery orb floating above the palm of her hand. “I've always been able to call it to me, even as a child. Not that I would be a very good teacher. I'm much better at doing things myself than explaining them.”

“You don't have to do much.” I try to convince her. “Just get me started. After that I usually figure out the rest.” Not exactly true. Obviously my mastery was in waterbending. I had mastered air as well, but only through training. My earthbending is easily my weakest element so far. Yeah I could throw rocks about but I lack nuance and it exhausts me. 

“I could get someone to teach you.” She offers. “I know many fine instructors who would do a much better job than I would.”

“No.” I insist. “I'd rather no one else know about my bending.”

“Oh?” This obviously amuses her. “What are you afraid of?”

“Not afraid exactly.” I tell her. “I've simply enjoyed my anonymity.”

“Very well.” She nods and stands from her throne, walking down to my level. I try to hide my smile as my suspicions prove correct. She is a bit short, the tip of her royal bun barely reaching my chin.

“All living things have energy flowing in our bodies.” She explains. “We call it chi.”

“Yes, I remember my Water Tribe instructor telling me about that.” I recall. “She said it was our chi that allowed us to connect to our element.”

“Wait, you're not even from the Earth Provinces?” She glares at me. “And I thought I was a good liar.”

“Is this really important?” I ask her.

“Just to my curiosity.” Azriel sighs. “But you're right about chi. It is what connects us to our element. However with firebending the connection is so close as to be indistinguishable. For all intents and purposes your chi is what you are bending. You build it up inside of you until you ignite it and send it outward. Like so.” She swipes her hand to her side, drawing an arc of flame that disappears in a poof. I'm trying to sense what she is saying but it's no use. I shake my head.

“But I've never been aware of my chi.” I moan. “I've always just sensed the element and moved it that way.”

“Fire is too fickle for that.” She warns. “You must focus it from its point of origin or it will erupt out of your control.”

“So how do I do that?”

“By becoming more intimately aware of your chi.” She states. “Without that I cannot teach you. I know a guru who can help.”

“I told you I don't-.”

“You don't want anyone else to know about your bending.” She waves my protest away and goes back to her throne. “You won't have to. You'll just be there to help sense and re-balance your chi.” She doesn't say anything but it's clear this interaction is over. I go to take my leave.

“Oh, I almost forgot your payment.” She calls behind me. “My guards will be waiting outside to escort you to it.”

“Escort me to what?”

“Why spoil the surprise?” She throws me a look that's almost... seductive. I shudder at what that means.

As promised there is a small retinue of guards waiting for me as I walk outside her... I don't know what to call it. It seems too small to be a palace yet too opulent to be a mere manse. There are many domes of marble to it, intricately carved showing what I assume must be Azriel's many deeds. Flames are cut everywhere and in the sunset glow of the day it practically shines and flows like real fire. 

“What is the name of the firelord's residence?” I ask one of the guards as we walk away from it.

“The Alcazar?” He seems very confused that I don't know this. I've never heard of the word before but somehow it seems fitting. I shrug and he shakes his head. There is no further conversation after this.

We come to a stop in front of what I would actually call a manse. It is big but not beyond reason, and intricately made with sturdy polished wood. Not as astounding as the Alcazar but impressive nonetheless. I wonder who lives here and why we are visiting them. Maybe this is Azriel's banker or something and this is how I will get my payment.

“Welcome to your new home, sir.” The guard bows to me.

“Sir?” I question. “When did I become sir?”

“When Firelord Azriel elevated your station, sir.” Clearly he is frustrated with my ignorance but I admire his patience.

“So what is my rank exactly?” That one stumps him. He stands stiff as a board and I swear actually starts to sweat in his panic of unknowing.

“I'm... not quite sure exactly...” He wavers. “We were simply told to obey your orders.” If find this mildly disturbing. It must be exhausting to live in such a society where authority can be given so casually to someone. I think I'm beginning to understand the resentful looks the guards have been trying to hide from me. It must rankle to have an outlander like myself elevated above them.

“So this is mine now?” I look back at the manse. It's far too much, especially after my time with the monks. But I do not think it prudent to refuse such a generous gift from such a terrifying woman.

“Firelord Azriel said that you would need a residence fitting to your new station.” The guard explains. “I'm told she gave the previous owners quite a fair price.”

“And where are they now?”

“Elsewhere.” The guard answers cryptically. There is no sign of him clarifying further. They leave without another word. I am left alone to face my ludicrously humongous house. At least that's what I think until I make it inside and am immediately greeted by a particularly aggressive species of butler.

“Good afternoon, sir.” He says to me while holding a tray with some sort of green beverage on it. I'm not given a choice, he simply hands it to me and gives me an expression that makes it clear that I will not be let into the house unless I take a drink. I sip at it and it is absurdly refreshing. It tastes like a clear spring morning when everything all around you is so full of life that you can feel it swelling up inside of you. How someone managed to fit that taste in a drink is mind-boggling.

“Is it to sir's liking?” The butler probes.

“Very much so.” I say between sips as I walk inside. It's hard to put down. “And you can stop with the 'sir'.”

“Sir?” It's alarming how anxious this makes him.

“Precisely.” I confirm. “I can't feel comfortable in my own home with you calling me 'sir' all the time.”

“What then would you like me to call you?” The butler seems on the verge of panic. “I'm afraid our glorious Firelord did not mention your title to me.”

“There isn't one apparently.” I can't help but laugh at the look of devastation on his face. “I was disappointed too. Anyway you can call me by my name just like anyone else. I'm Manu. What's your name?”

His face pales as I hold out my hand to him. The way he grabs it I imagine he has never shaken someone's hand before.

“My... my name is...” He stammers. It's astounding how simply treating this man like a regular person seems to have shattered his ability to deal with reality. “Lugon, sir... I mean, Manu! Not that we have the same name of course, just that you're not, sir... somehow and-.”

“Calm down, Lugon.” I clap his shoulder and it freezes him entirely. I don't think he is mentally prepared for this kind of affection from one he considers a superior. “We'll get through this I promise. You might even come to like having me around.” I look up at my new... I don't even know what to call it. “What is this room?”

“It is... the reception hall.” Lugon tells me. And so it is. There is an obsidian statue of some firebender I don't know staring down at me... quite arrogantly if I may say so. A fire burns in a bowl in his hands. Behind him are two marble staircases curving up to the next floor. There are couches and chairs and books in piles upon tables scattered about in a deliberately haphazard manner that makes it seem charmingly elegant. So my house has a waiting room bigger than any place I had ever lived in before.

“Can you show me to my bedroom?” I ask him.

“Of course, s-. I mean, Manu.” He bows and indicates the stairs before heading for them. “This way.”  
I make the long trek over to the stairs which also take time to mount which leads down an opulent hallway the stretches on forever.

“Sir. I'm sorry... Hard habit to break. Are you sure it's necessary I not say it?” He looks at me pleadingly and for a moment I think to give in. But I can't.

“Yes.” I tell him. “This is insane enough as it is.”

Lugon doesn't say anything in response but I can tell he agrees. “In any case... Manu... Does this mean that you will want the rest of your staff to refer to you by name?”

“I have a staff?”

“Why yes.” Lugon looks perplexed. “There are the gardeners and the kitchen staff and the maids who are directly under my purview of course.”

“How many people work here?” I ask.

“Twenty five... No! Twenty six now. Firelord Azriel was quite insistent that we add her guru to our ranks.” The butler nervously steeples his fingers over and over again. “She should be joining us some time tonight I hear.”

“Do all these people live here?” I wonder aloud. It's certainly big enough.

“Only the essential management and staff. Myself. The head of groundskeeping. The cook of course. There's a handyman somewhere that is constantly doing his own project but he keeps the place running so I don't ask questions. The rest live in apartments down the street.”

“I didn't know I was getting room-mates.” I tease.

“Your quarters are far removed from ours... Manu.” No kidding... It must've been a good five minutes since we had started making our way to them. He's still struggling but already he's getting better at using my name. There might be hope for him yet. “They are also far more luxurious.”

We arrive. I can tell because there are two doors here instead of one, making it look I am about to enter a gateway. He thrusts open the polished wooden doors to a room that scarcely looks smaller than the reception hall. The bed alone could fit ten people comfortably and is covered in a rich red silk canopy lined with gold. Behind it is a great arching window with the image of a dragon etched in a transparent red ink in the glass. The light from the setting sun shines through it and paints the image on the polished marble floor lined with thick carpets the color of wine. There are shelves filled with books everywhere and gorgeous life-like paintings of fantastic creatures and golden sconces set into marble pillars flecked with ruby and topaz. I walk past it all in a trance, realizing that the arched window has doors set into it and opened out to a balcony. Pushing open the doors I feel a breeze flutter past me, whipping up my hair and bringing the smell of brine with it. I can see the ocean from here, the waves choppy in the wind, foaming with white and reflecting the dying red rays of the sun as it sinks into its waters.

“A fine view.” Lugon comments behind me. Twilight sets as the sun gives in at last and the moment is over.

“Yes.” I concur. “Please... leave me.” Lugon bows and makes his way back inside. “Do me a favor will you?”

“Of course.” I can't believe the man is smiling at the prospect. “Anything.”

“Find a way to thank Azriel for me properly for her largess.” I see him wince at my lack of using Azriel's title. Still, I figure it might be fun to see how far my equal station with the Firelord went.

“It will be done... Manu.” He bows again and I consider asking him not to. Somehow I feel that might be asking too much of him.

Later on the cook decides to celebrate my arrival with a feast. Apparently the previous owners of the manse had kept well stocked larders. I insist if that is the case that he cook for everyone, including himself. Lugon is aghast at the idea but again I insist.

“But who will serve you, sir?” He shakes his head at the word but I let it go. He's only doing his best.

“I figure we can all serve ourselves, no?” There is a collective audible gasp from everyone in the room. Two maids and a server who apparently represent the other factions of the house. The gardeners had already gone home. A shame.

“But... this is most unrefined for one of your station.” I am surprised he has managed to get up the gall to admonish me like this. It makes me smile.

“And what station is that exactly?” I adopt the arrogance I had felt dripping from a certain firelord I know. It seems I will have to play their games if they are going to take me seriously.

“Why... that of a Firelord I am told.” Lugon blanches visibly, realizing his mistake.

“And am I correct in assuming that making sure that I am made comfortable in my own home is paramount among the household staff?” I ask him but it is more a presentation of the correct answer if he has the wit to see it.

“...yes.” He seems to. “Of course. That is precisely our duty.”

“Then you must eat with me.” I implore. “I cannot have an entire staff wait on me while going hungry.”

“It is too generous... Manu.” Lugon warns.

“I believe I get to decide what is too generous in my own house, Lugon.” I tell him.

“You are exactly correct, Manu.” It impresses me how he is able to say one thing with his words yet express the opposite with his tone. It seems I might have to keep an eye on this man. I begin to suspect he might be more than some uptight butler doing nothing but ordering his maids around all day.

The guru arrives right on time, knocking heartily at the door. Lugon answers it so quickly I think he's terrified at the prospect of me trying to open my own door. I contemplate doing so in the future, just to see his face. He returns with the guru, an old woman, her white hair tied up in a knot at the top of her head. She wears a set of yellow robes lined with orange that draw a border of cherry blossoms at the hem and sleeves.

“May I present Guru Tala.” Lugon stands aside to let her approach me. 

“Welcome Tala. Thank you for coming.” I cut her a smile. “I am Manu.”

“So I have been told.” She returns my smile with an equally sharp one. Her eyes are bright green, like shimmering emeralds. “Thanks are not necessary. 'A most unusual sort of man.' I believe Firelord Azriel said when describing you. Not a word she uses very often. Hearing that I had to come and see you for myself.”

“Do I live up to expectations?” I have to ask.

“That remains to be seen.” She places her palms together and bows.

“Fair enough.” I concede. “I hope you are hungry. We have a feast to enjoy apparently.” We walk into the dining room together. A long, grey, polished ashenwood table stretches across it, set for eighteen. 

“I did not know you would be having such a party for one such as I.” She bows her head. “Who did you invite to this affair?”

“Just my staff.” I tell her. “The cook wanted to celebrate and I decided everyone should share in it. Would you mind terribly helping yourself? My staff will be busy enjoying the meal themselves.”

“Most unusual indeed.” She smiles again. “It would be my pleasure.” Soon after the cook announces that dinner is ready. I make my way with the guru over to the kitchens. The whole place is bustling with everyone in the household huddled around the food. None has dared to touch anything yet. I suppose they are waiting for me.

There are plates of succulent smoked meats, cheeses, asparagus roasted with sliced almonds, pies and salads topped with poached pears. I take a bit of it all and notice the staff is still not digging in.

“I expect you all to try everything.” I order them. It's the only way they'll listen. They hesitate, torn between what they've been taught to be proper and doing what they've been told. The latter impulse eventually takes over. I'm sure the food smells just as good to them. We all leave with hefty piles on our plates. The table is already set with bottles of wine and silver goblets. I sit at the head, figuring they will revolt otherwise. The guru sits on my left while I insist Lugon sits at my right. I pour all three of us a glass, the wine is almost pure red and smells heady with spices.

“A toast!” I lift my goblet, encouraging the others to do the same. They do so reluctantly, fighting with their every instinct. “To our continued prosperity!” I drain my glass in one long slow gulp, forcing the others to do the same. A couple cough and sputter but I hope it'll get them to loosen up a little.

The food is some of the best I've ever eaten. Veal cheeks so tender it melts in my mouth. Creamy cheese that I spread over bread and drizzle with honey. The pies are savory and sweet and the vegetables crisp. The wine does its work and at last the staff relaxes enough to start enjoying themselves. The guru samples a few things here and there but doesn't eat much. Instead she seems very focused on me. She keeps asking me questions about what my favorite foods are and how far I've traveled across the world. At one point she places her hands on my chest and forehead and closes her eyes. I feel a subtle hum vibrate through my body.

“Your chi is very strange.” She says as if half asleep. “If I did not know better I would say... No... that's not possible...”

“What's not possible?” I ask eagerly. Could she sense what was “different” about me? Could she explain it?

“Oh never mind. Forget it.” She says with grin. It's only just now I notice the wrinkles on her cheeks and lips. She wasn't just old. She was ancient. And yet she stands so straight and seems to much younger. “I think the wine has addled up this old brain of mine. We'll talk later.”

In the end the dinner makes for a very reserved occasion. Even with drink the staff only flirts with impolite conversation around me and I am constantly having to stop them from offering me something. They always seem half ready to fly out the door to fetch me something. It saddens me that they seem incapable of seeing me as just a person, but more as an object to be appeased. Maybe they truly enjoy serving and that's why they cannot help themselves. Somehow I doubt it. Something about their manner reminds me of a trained ostrich-horse, obedient through fear of the lash. Perhaps I can break them out of it. That is if they want to.

The night ends early, even before time transitions inexplicably from tonight into tomorrow yet remains just as dark. The staff simply doesn't have that much party in them. I suppose that after the initial buzz of wine and unexpected adventure that they can't help but focus on what needs to be taken care of tomorrow. I decide that I am tired and want to wind down in my bedroom. The relief is palpable on their faces.

Back in my bedroom the size makes the place feel awfully... lonely. Even the dragon at the window is asleep in the darkness of night. The staff had not lit the sconces but I cannot fault them for that. I spend a good while stumbling in the dark, looking for some flint and tinder or something to light them. Instead I only find fancy knick-knacks. A metal statue of a firebender dancing with his partner made of flame. An old fat man laughing, carved in chipped stone. A porcelain bowl that shines palely in the moonlight, its rim lined by two fire-ferrets cuddling in a circle. They are all beautiful and expensive to be sure but I can't find anything useful. If only I could firebend...

The sconces light up all at once, making me hit my head on the edge of a cabinet I had been rifling through. I feel like I have been caught snooping which while correct is ridiculous considering it's all mine now. I turn to see Tala standing at my doorway, a circlet a tiny fire orbs revolving around her head.

“You've got a flair for the dramatic I see.” I say once I catch my breath. “I didn't know you were a firebender.”

“It doesn't happen often.” Tala tells me. She gathers the orbs and merges them together into a single sphere over her forehead, shining like a tiny sun before it winks out. “The nature of firebending makes it difficult to achieve serenity and balance. When so many are needed to fight we firebenders are often pressured to become warriors by our families. I chose a different path.”

“Do you regret that choice?” I ask her.

“Of course.” She smiles, oddly joyful in her admission. “There are regrets to every choice. However I think the benefits have outweighed the loss in my case. I am content. I see it is not the same with you.”

“You can see that can you?”

“Anyone with eyes can see it.” She smirks, her eyes shining deviously. “Yours is a soul in turmoil. Even your chi reflects that.”

“Are you here to tell me what you sensed in me before?” I ask.

“Yes. I only stopped myself because I realized you might not want others to hear of it.” Her smirk hardens into a frown of suspicion. “I have seen you earthbend with my own eyes but when I sensed you chi it didn't feel like an ordinary earthbender's. Benders in general tend to have a very similar feeling chi. It was there of course but it seemed almost... secondary to your nature and that's just... impossible. A person's bending is quintessential to them. Instead you felt more like...”

“A waterbender?” I finish for her, bending the water from a nearby washbasin to have it float around my head in a poor imitation of her earlier trick.

“How is this possible?” She gasps. It's fun to see someone who has claimed serenity look perturbed.

“I don't fully understand it myself.” I whisper afraid to say it too loudly. “But I... shared my blood with others. Somehow it has transferred their bending to me.”

“But that's been tried before.” Tala objects. “International marriages have been made for thousands of years and blood transfusions have been attempted many times. Those that nothing happened to were the lucky ones. The rest died painfully.”

“I used my waterbending to do it.” I'm not sure why I'm being so honest with her. Something about her makes me feel as if she won't use the knowledge against me. At least that's the hope. “I bent the blood from their bodies into my own.” She tries to hide her horror and mostly succeeds. It's hard to keep from the eyes though. They're only a little bit wider, but they're trembling.

“Even so.” She says as she recovers. “That has been tried as well.” I stifle a cry as she says this. Does she mean there were others who had committed my crime before me? “The delivery system doesn't seem to matter, it always ended the same, with death or nothing. What makes you different?”

“I honestly have no clue.” There is nothing special about me that I can think of. Nothing to indicate that I was meant to have this strange and terrifying gift. But I've gone this far. I can't doubt myself now. Not after everything that's happened. Not after everything I had lost.

“Well then we have work to do!” Tala has now shifted from suspicious to horrified to excited all in the span of a few minutes. It seems exhausting. “Can you bend all of the elements?”

“Not yet.” I admit. “I think I can firebend but I have no idea how to 'ignite my chi' or whatever it's called.”

“Oh I wouldn't try that just yet.” Tala warns. “I told you, your chi is in turmoil. Unpredictable. Volatile. To try to firebend with such chaos swirling inside you would be dangerous.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“We must find a way to get your chi to flow normally again somehow.” She responds. “You must align the fragments of others you have taken into your self.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?” I'm not really sure I understand what she's talking about let alone what to do about it.

“I have no idea.” She laughs and it's like a child giggling at a bubble. In this moment it is infuriating. “We are in uncharted territory, my friend. In all my years I have never seen someone who has torn a piece of another's chi and attached it to their own. I can't tell if it is wondrous or monstrous. In any case it is my duty as guru to ease suffering and preserve the self. The fact that you have more than one inside of you does not change that. It does however make it more difficult.” 

Tala squeezes her hand into a fist, drawing the fire from the sconces to her into a white hot orb. It's so bright and hot that it seems to melt even time away so that I see Tala as I imagine she once was, young and vibrant as a star shooting through the night sky. 

“I will teach you how to look inward.” She states. “Tomorrow the lessons begin.” The white orb dissipates into a shower of orange sparks then snuffs out, leaving me alone in the darkness. I was right. She does have a flair for the dramatic.

 

The next few weeks are an awkward ballet of introspection with Tala and navigating social mores among the staff. They defend their subjugation with an odd sort of fervor. I suppose it's hard to face that your life has been planned all along to be used by another. 

I spend much of my time with Tala. She makes it impossible not to. Every morning, no matter how early I try to wake up she is always there, waiting at my door. It makes me wonder if she ever sleeps or that somehow in her endlessly long life she has managed to learn to live without sleep and for some reason has decided to use such a talent to hound my every waking hour.

“Why do you have to fight them all the time?” She growls at me. It's the most flustered I've seen her in weeks.

“I'm not fighting anything.” I know I'm telling the truth yet somehow I feel like I'm holding something back. Tala seems to agree.

“But you are.” She insists. “I can see it even without touching you. Your chi is turbulent, unbalanced. That wouldn't happen if you weren't conflicted.” 

“You're supposed to be teaching me how to stop them fighting.”

“That's not how it works.” Tala admonishes me. “They are a part of you now. You cannot coerce them. You must find common ground.”

“But you refuse to tell me how to do that!” I accuse in my frustration. “How am I supposed to learn when you don't teach?”

She shakes her head. “I can only show you the door. It is you that must walk through.”

“I don't understand.” I tell her.

“You must.” She smiles and closes her eyes. “There has never been someone as unique as you. That means something. Don't just throw it away.”

“I don't intend to.” I spit back. “But I cannot do what I do not know. No one can.”

“I do not disagree.” She cups my chin with her gnarled palm. “But you must nonetheless.”

At last she decides that drastic measures are needed. She summons me to my own pool built in the basement levels of my mansion. I didn't know of is existence. Apparently the staff had decided to keep it a secret. I appreciate the surprise.

She lays me down into the water, floating on its surface so that my ears remain submerged. I hear its flow mixed with the thrum of my anxiety. It all comes together into a neutral hum that dulls my senses. Allows me to sink beneath what I usually take as reality.

_I've been here before. I can tell by the shape of the room and the chairs surrounding me. There's Hajuk's seat, a throne set in slate. Then Umani set upon a spout of glass. Gonan atop his column of fire. And last that nameless man whose life I stole at the start of all this seated on a simple chair._

 

I bolt upright in the pool, splashing furiously and trying my hardest not to scream.

“You were doing so well!” Tala hisses in disappointment. “Why did you stop?”

“I saw them...” I gasp, still trying to catch my breath. “They were all around me...”

“Yes.” She huffs. “That's the point of all this, remember?”

“Right.” I try to get a hold of myself. “What do I say to them? What do I do?”

“That's between you and them.” She's useless as ever. “Try again.” I sigh and let her lower me back into the water. It isn't as soothing this time but when I close my eyes I find the hum again. Not long after I'm falling back within myself.

 

_They're waiting for me of course. I suppose that's all they can do now. None of them say anything, just stare with their dead eyes._

_“I come all this way and yet you have nothing to say?” My voice is swallowed up in the dark._

_“What do you expect?” This is Umani. “You killed us remember.”_

_“As I recall you tried to kill me first.”_

_“Fair enough.” Umani admits. “But they didn't.” My attention drifts to Gonan._

_“You poisoned me.” He accuses. “Then you drained all the blood from my body.”_

_“Can you honestly tell me you didn't deserve worse?” I lash out at him._

_“Why?” His seat flares up around him. “Because I killed your friend? I've killed plenty of people.”_

_“You're not really helping your argument.” Umani points out._

_“I mean to say his friend is nothing special.” He shrugs. “People are killed all the time. Part of life. No need to take it so personally.”_

_“Do you even listen to yourself?” He turns away, apparently finished with the conversation._

_“It is you who does not listen.” An unfamiliar voice. I spin around to meet the nameless man's eyes. He doesn't look angry at all. Just tired. “I came to help you that day the polar bear dog attacked. It must be so long ago now. I asked if you were all right and then I felt my blood pouring out of me. I had no idea what was going on. I was terrified. And then I was dead.”_

_“I'm sorry...” I tell him. I don't know how to make it sound sincere enough to matter. “I didn't know what I was doing... I thought it was my blood I was taking back...”_

_“That doesn't make it better.” He says. “You took my life from me when all I did was try to help you. You've no right to judge anyone.”_

_“You're right.” I agree. “If anyone here is a monster it's me.” I finally look at the face I had been avoiding all this time. “Hajuk...”_

_It hurts looking at him. Judging by the look he gives me he must feel the same. I reach out to touch  
him but he's not ready for that. I wonder if he ever will be. It feels like a knife in my gut. These moments of silence are unbearable. How can I have him back and not at the same time?_

_“I've missed you...” I only realize the depth of my admission as I say it, the weight of all the years without him falling on my shoulders at once so that I collapse to my knees. He gives me a sad smile._

_“Did you see me take down that dragon?” He asks me._

_“You know I did.” I can't help it. I'm crying now. “You stupid bastard.”_

_“Saved you didn't it?” He makes a muscle._

_“You could've saved us both.” I insist. “You forget. I'm an earthbender now. It would've been so simple...”_

_“No it wouldn't.” He doesn't even consider it for a moment. “If I was at my best and we were lucky? Sure. But there was only one way to ensure you didn't get hurt and I took it. Didn't think it would end so badly...”_

_“I was trying to save you.” I blurt out. “When you were burned. I was trying to keep you alive with my blood. I had no idea what it would do. I still don't understand what is happening.”_

_“You took a part of my soul, Manu.” Hajuk chokes a little as he says this. “Same for everyone else. You ripped a piece of us from ourselves and now we're those pieces inside of you. There is so much I should know that isn't there. Where I was born. Who my parents were. I know I loved you but do not remember any of our moments together. I know who you are, but you are a stranger to me...”_

_“Does that mean you do not love me anymore?” There is a long pause._

_“I don't know if I'm capable.” He sounds so sad... “But I will try.”_

_“And what do you want from me?” I ask him. He looks stunned by the question._

_“Does it matter anymore?” Umani again. “We're dead. Barely even people anymore.”_

_“It matters to me.” I growl through gritted teeth_

_“Only because he was your lover.” Gonan pipes in._

_“All right then, all of you.” I extend the offer to everyone. “What do you want?”_

_They exchange glances with each other, their dead eyes betraying nothing. Still they manage to reach a consensus and the nameless man speaks on their behalf._

_“We want you to continue living your life.” He tells me. “And from time to time live how we would. A small way to pay back what you stole.”_

_“How will I know how to do that?”_

_“Just be open to your impulses.” His voice sounds a little less tired now. “We'll be there.”_

 

I wake up in Tala's arms with a great big gasping breath. She caresses my forehead and it's incredibly soothing. I fall limp. She places her hands on my head and heart and I feel that familiar vibration coming from her.

“Better.” She says with eyes closed. “Much, much better.”

Thankfully there is a pile of towels stacked where we come out. I dry myself, rubbing furiously against the chill in the air. It makes me think of fire.

“So when will I start to learn how to firebend?” I ask Tala.

“You can try it right now if you like.” She informs me nonchalantly. 

“Now?”

“Why not?” She continues. “Your chi is stabilized and we're in a room full of water, which you can bend by the way. Seems like the perfect time to me.”

“But I haven't the faintest clue how to ignite my chi.” I had been thinking about it this whole time and gotten nowhere.

“Earlier, when you were in the trance. You felt like you were falling, no?” She surmises. I nod. “Try to remember that feeling.”

I close my eyes and try to bring up that sensation. It's not as easy when I'm not floating in the water but having been lead there I realize that the hum I had noticed before is still there. Always was now that I think about it. It's like getting used to the noise of a crowd to the point where you don't notice it anymore, yet it's still there.

I feel Tala's hand on my shoulder.

“Hold on a moment.” She cautions. “I said remember, not to go back.”

“Now what?” It feels uncomfortable, basking in the hum but not following it to its end. 

“What you're feeling right now is your life's energy. It naturally flows inward but it responds to your will.” She informs me. “Instead of falling inward you must push outward.”

“I don't know what that means.” To me this 'flow' is like a sound rattling my bones. How could you push a sound?

“Just try anyway.” She encourages me.

I take in a deep breath and notice that it makes the hum more... intense. I picture glowing lines following the path of my arm, spreading to my heart and down my stomach and even further down my legs. They vibrate like strings of a lyre, glowing brighter the harder they're struck. Somehow my breathing is doing this.

“Good.” Tala's voice sounds so far away. “Keep going.”

I breathe out and the strings start to calm, to dim. It goes on this way. In. Bright. Strong. Out. Dim. Soft. In. Bright. Strong. Out. Dim. Soft. Over and over again. It's mesmerizing to watch, yet I don't get how I 'push'.

“You draw in energy when you breathe.” Tala lectures. It's hard to focus on her words. “Think of it as loading a canon. This energy naturally flows into your body. But you can direct it as you breathe out, use the moment in which you displace the energy with your exhale to push it from you.” 

“That doesn't make any sense.” I argue.

“Yes it does!” She snaps. “Just focus!”

I focus and all I see is the same cycle. The light waxes and wanes as I breathe and I cannot fathom what she means by 'the moment where I displace the energy'. It simply fades. Or does it? I try to drown out as much as possible from the outside, shave my senses down to a fine point in which all that exists are these lines of chi. And then I see it.

The lines aren't lines at all but disconnected nodes drawing energy as it pulses along. It just happens so fast that it looks like a connected line of light. If I time it right I can exhale at the moment that a certain node ignites and... I think I might be able to redirect it. I wait with held breath as the pulse passes over it once... twice... 

_Now!_

I go to exhale and yet find that although I had been holding my breath for long that there is little air coming out. Instead I see sparks shooting from my open palms. Little fireflies that burst into tiny delicate life and then are gone. It is so little and yet I can't help but feel exhilarated.

“Well done.” Tala smiles and it is entirely sincere. “You are now a firebender.”


	5. Spirit

I go through the process of training as a firebender. Once I figured out the secret it becomes easy to learn, though uniquely terrifying. It is as explosive as air, but with far more potent results. Igniting my chi is easy. Controlling it is another matter entirely. Still, it comes with practice. Doing the same thing over and over gets me to understand the rules. How much of myself to ignite. How to guide it as it erupts from my body. It does not bear recounting.

The years pass by in my service to Azriel. There are months of exquisite freedom. Where I can travel wherever I want or stay and make my manse a fantasy. Feasts and balls and other more... intimate gatherings. But then there are the assignments. Places for me to go to. People for me to kill. It becomes commonplace. Mundane. 

We are in the reception hall which I have redecorated to give a more homey feel. Furs lining the floor, ceremonial masks hanging on the walls, even a makeshift fire-pit. Lugon refuses to walk inside of it which amuses me to no end. I wonder how much farther he has to walk to get anywhere in the mansion.

Despite his efforts I have managed to win over a majority of the staff. I participate in helping maintain the household and everyone pitches in but I also make sure they feel at home here. A small group is playing music around the fire on lyres and drums. One has even become a passable tsungi horn player. Others are dancing or laughing as they enjoy a glass of wine. A few stand in the corners dressed in uniform, maintaining their precious propriety. They ignore what the others do but try their best to offer me food or wine. They also try to clean up after me. At least when I let them, which I do from time to time to keep them from getting moody.

The music stops suddenly and I look up to see Azriel at my door, a retinue of guards surrounding her. Everyone in the room bolts up as if not doing so would mean their death. For all I know it probably does.

“Firelord Azriel!” I exclaim. “Forgive our casual appearance. This is quite a surprise! In all my years here you have never visited my home.”

“True.” She grins, sharp as ever. “And in all our years together you have never addressed me as Firelord. It is truly a special day.”

“What is so urgent that you had to come all this way?” I press to get to the point. I imagine Lugon is beside himself, unable to decide whether he will at last face this disgraceful room to do his duty to greet the Firelord or stay cowering out of the shame of it all. The rest of the staff looks horribly uncomfortable. This might set back my efforts a few years.

“Business as usual.” She snatches a glass of wine from a nearby servant's tray. “Yet another person needing taken care of.”

“What city-state am I going to this time?”

“Not a city-state.” She purrs. “An Earth Province.”

“Who could possibly have caused you trouble from so far away?” I wonder aloud.

“Oh this one isn't personal.” She explains. “More of a favor for some friends of mine. An expensive favor that will really help our efforts. You will be leaving tomorrow. I've contracted a Sky Bison from the Western Air Temple. It will meet you outside the city.”

“You have three city-states under your control.” I tell her. “What more could you want?”

“All the rest.” I can tell by the fire in her eyes that she's serious. “What else?”

“You have a voracious appetite.”

“Would you expect anything less from a Lord of Fire?” She says. “If we do not consume we go out.” She goes to leave, taking the cup with her as she goes. I follow her to the door, her guards eyeing me warily. They never got around to trusting me. I suppose they never will.

“Why did you really come here?” I ask her.

“To see if the rumors were true.” Is all she gives me before she leaves. I turn around to see my staff reverted back to their servile demeanor.

“Well, you heard the Firelord!” I call to them. “We must prepare for the journey!”

 

The next day dawns too quickly. Lugon comes to call at my door as I am dressing. 

“Here to see me off?” I say through a shirt as I pull it over my head. When I pop back out I can see his look of disdain for an instant before he slaps on the polite veneer I've become accustomed to.

“It is my duty, sir.” Ever since I had converted some of the staff he has refused to use my name.

“I have relieved you of such duties, Lugon.” I remind him.

“I do not believe you can, sir.” Stubborn as ever. Oh well.

“Well you're in charge as usual.” I continue as I gather my things. I try to pack well, prepare for anything. Azriel hasn't even given me a name this time. I can only hope she plans to tell me what I'm doing before I go to do it. “I'll be gone longer than usual. A few months at least.”

Lugon tries and fails to hide his relief. I place a hand on his shoulder, knowing it makes him visibly uncomfortable.

“I expect everything to be where I left it when I come back.” I warn him. Lugon likes to take liberties with the manse while I'm away.

“That is not possible.” Lugon informs me. “But we shall try.”

“Of course you will.” I say, dubious that it will be true. I'm sure Lugon will come up with some reason or another to return the manse to its 'proper state'. I shoulder my pack and head towards the reception hall where the rest of my staff waits. They don't have their uniforms on but they might as well have the way they stand in lines at either side of me, their eyes downcast.

“What is this a funeral procession?” I accuse them. “Your boss is leaving you to your own devices. You all should be dancing for all the freedoms you'll enjoy.” Some manage a shy smile but most keep their faces properly neutral.

“Try to keep Lugon from turning the place upside down while I'm gone.” I request of them. That manages a few laughs at least. “I'll be back as soon as I can.”

I burst out of the doors to the streets outside. It's easy for me to get to the gates of the city as I am able to use the pathways reserved for firelord travel and business. Lugon has conscripted a palanquin for me but I refuse it as always. It feels better when I walk.

Outside I am greeted by a big fluffy monster that reminds me of Bubo, the poor beast. For years I would see him flying around, still looking for Aurian. I had tried to catch him once, to find a way to make him understand, maybe even take care of him myself. But the ten-ton behemoth was in no mood to cooperate. He broke our ropes as we tried to lash him down. I haven't seen him since.

This one is clearly not Bubo however. The nose is entirely too large, its eyes a little too close together, giving it an adorably stupid expression. A familiar face is riding up on the Sky Bison's neck.

“Merin!” I call up to the old jolly woman, sporting a toothless smile as always. “Good to see you!”

“And you.” Her voice quavers. I wonder just how old she is. “It has been a while.”

“Well, we'll have plenty of time to catch up as we head to the Earth Provinces.” I return her smile.

 

It is good to be on a Sky Bison again. I hadn't been on one for years. The wind in your face, the clouds hanging so tantalizingly soft below you, the endless sky. I had missed being up here. It made me want to airbend and fly around myself. But I had managed to keep my talents hidden all this time. No point in ruining it now.

The trip takes us two weeks. Two weeks cut off from the entire world. Two weeks of pleasant conversation with an old friend and pai sho. Merin always wins even though at the same time she is airbending to make sure the pieces and board don't go flying off. I don't think I'll ever get a handle on the game. We take time to fish. It's the only meat she allows herself and only on occasions like this. She swears me to secrecy and I am happy to oblige.

Then at last after days of featureless sea the Earth Provinces emerge from the waters. I find it disappointing that it isn't more green, since its people wear nothing else. Then again I suppose it's not like the Fire Nation is covered in red. Except maybe in the case of sieges and skirmishes.

We land on a beach and Merin falls on her back and nestles in the sand.

“Well I guess this is goodbye.” I say to her.

“Don't let me keep you.” She replies with eyes closed. Clearly she has already moved on to life without me. I smile as I make my way to one of the nearest villages. The guards question me but after I bend some earth and show off Azriel's seal they let me pass. As I walk down the market street I hear a sharp cry from above. A familiar silhouette crosses the sun and I let out a high pitched whistle. The shadow dives down and lands on my outstretched arm. Thankfully I remembered to wear the jess this time. Once I'd forgotten and those talons are a lot longer and sharper than you'd think.

The messenger hawk sits on my arm, eyeing me curiously with its head tilting this way and that. A missive is attached to its leg so I go to remove it. The hawk steps to the side and looks at me more intensely.

“Forgive me, feathered one.” I apologize. “I forgot no one works for free.” It cries out to me as if it understands what I am saying. For all I know maybe it does.

I make my way to a butcher shop and buy scraps for pennies. After tossing a few to him he finally relinquishes his message. I caress his neck before opening it. He ruffles his feathers and flies to a nearby tree. I leave the rest of the scraps at the base of it before walking away.

_The woman is in this village. Her name is Raava. The client wants to know if she can lead them to an old fugitive. Try to get it out of her before finishing the job._

I am in constant awe of the timing of this woman. How she does it is beyond me. Her brain must be entirely made of gears. So meticulous, so precise. I wonder what the reward for this is for her. Must be something worthwhile to send me all the way out here.

Something about all this doesn't feel right, but I see no reason not to press forward. I make my way into the village, finding the only tavern in the place. I take my seat at the bar and order a drink. When the barkeep comes back with my mug I take a big swig.

“I was wondering if you can help me out.” I tell him.

“I already did.” He says with a grin, about to turn away.

“True, and I am much obliged.” I admit. “But I was wondering if you've seen someone. I'm looking for my cousin. A woman called Raava. She ran from home and the family's sent me to bring her back.”

“Can't say I've heard the name.” He ponders for a moment. “But there is this woman who's recently come here. She'd gotten herself hired as a serving wench at the Meng Tong manor. You could try there.”

I thank him and finish my beer before heading out. The manor is not hard to find, it being the largest building in the village, complete with high walls. I decide not to even bother with the guards at the gate. It's unlikely I'll be able to convince them to let me in and I do not want to attract attention to myself. Instead I look around the area, looking for gaps or weaknesses in the walls. As expected it's well made and maintained. I'll have to get over them without getting spotted.

I check myself into an inn and wait for night to fall. It's nearly midnight before I go out, so dark and quiet it feels like my steps are echoing. How different the Earth Provinces are from the Fire Nation. In Granthi there was always something afoot at all hours and there was light everywhere. Here the silence and darkness is almost oppressive.

When I reach the manor I blast myself up in the air on top of the wall. There are guards but they are at the gates and doors to the manor, not on the walls above. These Meng Tongs had gotten quite comfortable it would seem. Next to the manor is a small, humble building that must be for the servants. No guards are posted there. I creep along the wall until I find my way on the other side of the servants' quarters and drop down out of sight of the guards and onto the roof. From there it's easy enough to find an open window to a hallway inside.

I step as lightly as possible through the dark hallways, trying to find anything that could possibly lead me to Raava. If only Azriel had given me some details about her, something I could use to identify her. With as little as I know now it could take weeks for me to figure out who I'm supposed to be looking for. And yet somehow Azriel knows she's here?

I turn around the corner to see a woman standing in shock with a candle in her hand. I draw in a sharp breath and try to keep my bones from leaping from my skin in my surprise. After I recover I realize I recognize her.

“Raava.” I whisper. I know it's her because it's the woman who had let me go all those years ago in the Water Tribe. She is older, lines wrinkling her face and years adding to her waist but there is no way I could forget those eyes.

“I never told you my name.” Apparently she recognizes me too.

“What are you doing here?” I ask her.

“Looking for you.” She whispers. “I told you the Earth Provinces were nice.”

“That was years ago.” I remind her. “Over a decade. Almost two.”

“I couldn't stay in the South Pole.” She explains. “They came after the Healer's Guild after I let you go. Many suspected I helped you. When they stopped us from healing I decided I could no longer call it home... So I came here.”

“But the barkeep said you'd come here only a couple months ago.” 

“I don't like to stay too long in one place.” She tells me. “How else would I find you?”

“And why exactly were you looking for me?”

She places a finger to her lips. “I can't tell you that yet. But I can show you. Can you meet me tomorrow evening? I'll take you to my favorite place in the whole world.” Her smile seems so genuine but I can't help but feel as if I were walking into a trap. Still, I don't know what else to do. Meeting this woman again... after so long... here... sent to kill her for the crime of letting me go... It feels like more than coincidence. I nod my head and she giggles into her hand.

“I'll see you then.” She slinks past me. “Now excuse me I have something urgent to take care of.” I watch her disappear down the hallway like a ghost. 

_Tomorrow then..._

 

I don't sleep at all during the night. Just sit in my room and stare out the window drowning in my memories, wondering if I should go. I realize that I owe this woman everything. If she hadn't freed me I wouldn't have met Hajuk. Wouldn't have lost him either. Wouldn't have discovered my talent. I would've just been dead. Maybe it's lack of sleep or maybe I am truly getting too old to care about living but in the end I figure that even if she does want to kill me that that's fair enough. Dawn bleeds color back into the sky, painting the clouds with pink and vibrant orange.

I spend the day wandering in the fields outside of the village. The stalks are yellow and dry, the sun hot in the sky but I just keep going. I earthbend, wanting to see if the earth itself is different here in the Earth Provinces. It seems to flow easier though I can't say how or why. I make geometric sculptures. Hedrons, domes, pyramids. I transform a mound into a great eye open wide to the sky. The sun starts to set.

Raava is waiting outside of the manor. I walk up to her and hold my arm out. She takes it with a smile and leads me back out into the open. There doesn't seem to be any trail that I see but her steps don't falter. I follow feeling half in a daze.

“Where are you taking me?” I ask her.

“I don't want to spoil the surprise.” She insists.

“If you're going to kill me I'd rather you get it over with.” I blurt out. I've lost much of my patience and tact in my old age. She turns around from on top of a hill looking truly perplexed.

“Why would I want to kill you?” A breeze picks up tossing her hair across her face.

“Why not?” I say. “You can easily argue I ruined your life.”

“I made my choice knowing full well what I was doing.” She shakes her head. “I don't blame you, nor do I regret my decision.”

“You're a better person than I am.” I sigh.

“Perhaps.” She concedes and we continue onward. As I make it to the top of the hill I see a great lake stretch out before me. It's so big I can't see the far shore from here. “Here we are.”

“What does a lake have to do with you looking for me?”

“Come with me down to the shore and find out.” She invites as she runs headlong through the grass. I figure I've come this far, I might as well go all the way. I run after her, the stalks of grass slapping against my torso as I weave through them. They give way to a muddy shore littered with smooth black rocks. The last rays of sun gleam across the lake then fade to twilight. Fireflies flare in the darkening sky hovering over the lake, their glow revealing a pool full of lotus blossoms. Insects sing their chirping song accompanied by frogs as night falls.

“This place is beautiful.” I can't help but say.

“Isn't it though?” Raava agrees. “Lotus flowers are my favorite.”

“That's why you brought me here?” I'm disappointed. “To show me your favorite flower?”

“Of course not.” She lifts her arms and starts to sing in a piercing, high pitch melody. It's soft yet the high notes strike straight into my heart, haunting and ethereal. Even when she's finished it echoes across the lake till it seems almost ever present.

At first nothing happens. The lake continues to lap calmly against the shore though the animals seem to grow quiet. Then I feel a rumble build and ripples start to form on the surface of the water. The ripples become a whirlpool till at last an island starts to erupt from it making the lake roil and the ground shake. It grows and grows, becoming impossibly huge. And just when I thought my awe and surprise couldn't get any greater I see a humongous face emerge, its eyes giant orange globes so ancient and deep with wisdom I could fall endlessly inside of them. It seems to grin at me, though it is hard to tell through its enormous tusks.

**THIS IS THE ONE WHOM I HAD SENSED WITHIN YOU**

The impossible beast proclaims and its voice is like rolling thunder. The power behind it is such that I do not just hear it, it fills my entire person so that all that I come to consider my self is washed away, replaced by his unquestionable word.

“What is this creature?” I ask Raava, trying my best not to give into my terror.

“He is a lion-turtle.” She says matter-of-factly, as if that answers anything.

“And what does it want with me?”

“He can answer that himself.” She gestures toward the creature who stares at me patiently with its... his terrifying eyes.

**I HAVE WAITED CENTURIES TO MEET YOU, LITTLE BENDER**

It takes me a moment to catch my breath after he speaks. It's so intense that I even forget to breathe.

“Why?” I ask but I figure I know the answer. “What do you want from me?”

**BALANCE**

“I don't understand.”

**HUMANS SELDOM DO. YOU HAVE SUCH SHORT LIVES. HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY SEE THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR ACTIONS?**

“What do you mean?”

**WHEN YOUR KIND WERE IN ITS INFANCY WE CARED FOR YOU, GUIDED YOU SO YOU COULD GROW. IT WAS A DELIGHT TO US**

The force of his voice overcomes me so that I have to sit down. He stops and considers me for a moment before continuing.

**THEN YOU CAME ACROSS THE SECRET OF BENDING AND IT WAS A WONDER TO US. WE WERE PROUD THAT YOU HAD FOUND A POWER YOU COULD CALL YOUR OWN.**

I wonder what it had been like back then in the time when bending was discovered. All we have today are folktales and legends of how it came to us, each tale taller than the last. Could this lion-turtle really have lived so long?

**BUT HUMANITY'S MEMORY IS AS SHORT AS ITS GRATITUDE. AFTER ONLY A COUPLE GENERATIONS YOUR ANCESTORS BEGAN TO HUNT US. NOW WE ARE FEW... SO FEW...**

The creature closes its eyes. I don't believe I have ever seen a face so sad.

**_IT MUST STOP!_ **

I realize astoundingly that the lion-turtle had been speaking quietly before. This last exclamation hits me like a wave, making my whole body ache.

“What does any of that have to do with me?”

**YOU HAVE UNLOCKED THE TALENT TO MERGE YOUR LIFE'S ENERGY WITH ANOTHER.**

He reaches for me with his claw and I am unable to move as he presses them to my forehead and chest. I feel the same energy I had from Tala but instead of a hum it is a roar.

**I SEE YOU HAVE LEARNED ALL FORMS OF BENDING AS WELL. EXACTLY WHAT IS NEEDED**

“For what?”

**WE NEED YOU TO FORM THE PRIMAL ELEMENT**

“I've never heard of a primal element.” I admit. “What is it?”

**ALL OF EXISTENCE IS EXPRESSED IN A FORM OF ENERGY. THE FOUR ARE BASIC ARTICULATIONS OF THE ELEMENTS BUT THERE IS A DEEPER MORE PURIFIED FORM**

“Where do you find that?”

**IT NO LONGER EXISTS. IT WAS ONLY PRESENT IN THE MOMENT OF CREATION. IT IS CREATION ITSELF.**

“How can you expect me to form it then?”

**BY WEAVING THE FOUR INTO ONE**

“I don't know how to do that.”

**NO ONE DOES. IT HAS NEVER BEEN ATTEMPTED BEFORE**

“Then how do you know I can do it?”

**WE DO NOT. BUT YOU MUST TRY**

 

And so begins my training in trying to weave the primal element. Although in truth it is less training and more experimentation. It absolutely refuses to go well. Any attempt to merge the elements ends in a complete mess. Water and Fire can never directly touch and if I mess up the Earth ratio it immediately becomes mud. And that's not getting into how I could possibly integrate Air. I try different patterns, different states, hoping a lattice of ice could help things. Again and again, adding minute variations to try to make sense of it but every time it goes nowhere.

“It's impossible.” I tell him.

**PERHAPS. WILL YOU BE GIVING UP THEN?**

“After a week?” I laugh. “Hardly. I could use a break though.”

**YES. YOU HUMANS TEND TO NEED REST AND CHANGE. GO NOW AND RETURN WHEN YOU ARE ABLE. BUT REMEMBER THAT YOU HAVE LIMITED TIME. I KNOW WHAT IT MEANS WHEN YOUR HAIR TURNS GREY.**

“I've got a good ten years left in me, easy.” I tell him. “Maybe even twenty.”

**A BLINK OF AN EYE**

To a creature like him it must be so. I had asked how old he was once and he said he honestly did not know. When I asked him what his name was he said he couldn't remember. It had been so long since he had seen another lion-turtle. So long since he had heard it that he had forgotten.

I mostly spend my time with Raava who has become a source of great comfort. She is like a still, cool pool of water that pours itself lovingly slow over all my raging wounds. I recognize them much more clearly when I am thrown against her serenity. All the nicks and cuts that my life had rent into me seemed to open up again and bleed at once. Probably because of my search. There is a sense of poignancy to seeking something so innate that it leaves me feeling vulnerable. 

“How did you come to find the lion-turtle?” I ask her as she lays on my chest. We've become comfortable with each other this way although I don't think it will become anything more than that.

“I was just sort of drawn to him I guess.” She murmurs, half-asleep. “I found the lake almost immediately after I came here. It was like he was expecting me.”

“He couldn't have planned for it.” I say. “He's been standing still for at least a thousand years. Long before we were born.”

“I don't know...” Her voice is so quiet that I feel it on my chest more than hear it. “He has a way of knowing things he shouldn't. Something tells me he's more connected to the outside world than he lets on.”

I don't say anything but her words disturb me a little. Could my life have been guided somehow by this creature? I seems impossible to me. It's obvious the lion-turtle has hardly moved from his resting place in the lake. He practically is part of the scenery, bound to the lake floor by ropes of moss and bearded with lichen. And yet he was not surprised to see me when I arrived. He gazed upon me as if I were inevitable. Was that because he made it so?

I tap her lightly on her cheek and she rises with a knowing look in her eye.

“Where are you going?” She asks, her voice quivering a little.

“Back to the village.” I tell her. “I need some time to think.” We had been camping out here during my training. It had been wonderfully peaceful. But now I'm not so sure I want to stay.

“About running away again.” She surmises. I honestly can't tell her she's wrong. 

“I just need some time.” I tell her. “This is all so much... I just need time.”

“Take it.” She smiles sadly. “I understand. Truly. When I first met with him I ran away screaming. Didn't come back for years. But it always sort of nagged me from the back of my mind. So one day I came back and this time I waited to hear him speak. I have been visiting him ever since. He has such stories to tell...” She realizes she's rambling and blushes. “Anyway... I understand how you feel a little bit. Just remember. We don't have as much time as we used to.”

“I know.” I agree. “That's why it's important I think this through.”

It's a short trek back to the village. I sort of wander around the streets, looking for nothing in particular to do. It isn't long before I find a group playing dice in an alleyway and I find myself on a particularly good winning streak. My paranoia flares up and I wonder if the lion-turtle has something to do with it. I know he can't be all powerful but my mind keeps on coming up with new and strange powers he might have. What exactly can he do that he's not telling me?

With that thought I collect my winnings, deciding not to press my luck. Now what to do with them? My first thought is to get drunk but I'm not particularly in the mood to. I have a feeling it will only make the empty melancholy sitting at the bottom of my stomach that much worse. There are many stalls in the market... Not that I had ever been one to shop. Even in Granthi I let the staff do the shopping for me. It was simply easier as I had no interest and they were particularly insistent. Still, there couldn't be much harm in looking.

I pass by a potions stall but a customer cracks open a vial and something foul erupts from it. I walk past it gagging and therefore have no interest in the fruit next door. The fruit monger looks terribly annoyed and starts badgering the potions maker. I move on, finding myself drawn to a stall that sells hats and masks. I peruse, finding each beautiful and strange. Here a sleek panther with crimson eyes that covers the top of one's face. There a cobra with its hood flared. It try on a headdress made with green and white feathers into the shape of an owl's head and gaze into a polished glass hoping I don't look utterly ridiculous.

“You know that actually rather suits you.” I snap rigid as a board at the sound of her voice. How could she possibly be here? But then again, it only makes sense. “It kind of looks like a crown.”

“If you say so, Azriel.” I take off the headdress and put it back on its hook. “Have you been here the whole time?”

“Mostly.” She purrs, her eyes glowing like embers about to spark into flame. “I was planning on surprising you when you had finished the job. I didn't expect to be waiting this long.”

“I apologize for the inconvenience.”

“No apologies necessary.” She waves my words away. “Although I would appreciate an explanation. You were supposed to kill the woman, not shack up with her.”

“Are you jealous?”

“Of what?” She laughs. “My scouts have reported nothing particularly interesting going on between you two. How oddly celibate of you.”

“I owe her-.”

“You owe her nothing!” She snaps, a pained look on her face. She turns away. “She opened a door for you years ago. That much I understand. But she didn't help you build your life up afterward. That was you and in no small way me as well.”

“I owe you much as well, Azriel.” I tell her. It isn't wrong even if she had always made sure that our dealings were mutually beneficial.

“And this is how you repay me?” She growls. I've never seen her so outwardly furious before. Hers has always been a cold sort of fire. “This was supposed to be my gift to you. She is the only thing left that links you to your old life. Kill her and be done with it. You can continue as you have with me. Together we can conquer the whole of the Fire Nation. You can rule beside me as my King and never have to worry about your past again.”

I can't say I am not tempted by this offer. Not that the thought of conquest gives me much pleasure. No, the true temptation is in her promise of a severance of the past. I am so desperate to be free from its pain. All of that could be worth it, to become royalty, to be truly free.

And yet even so I could see the net she was weaving around me. This was no romantic declaration but the forging of an ambitious alliance. I had worked with the firelord long enough to know that while she presents you with wealth and power in one hand she shackles you with the other. I may be King yes, but only in name. In truth I would just be another plaything of hers, a pet, a tool of power that she has wrestled under her control. 

“I can't.” It's harder to say than I had expected. Her eyes widen in shock. She truly must never hear 'no' whenever she interacts with someone. Her face contorts with rage and she slaps me in the face, her sharp nail cutting into my cheek.

“I have spilled the blood I once shared with you.” She proclaims, her voice shaking in fury. “You are now less than nothing. All privileges and property due to your former station have been revoked. I spit on your pathetic existence.” She doesn't lie and spits me squarely in the face. By the time I recover she is gone with her retinue. I have no doubt I will never see her again.

I spend a week or so at the village doing nothing in particular, procrastinating committing to a choice I had already made. There is something vaguely ominous to the search for the primal element that I cAn't put my finger on. Even so I find I'm too curious about it to walk away. At last my winnings run low and I donate what's left to my mates. They'd earned that much for entertaining me the past days. Now well and truly penniless I make my way back to the lion-turtle. Back to Raava.

She laughs and claps her hands when she sees me, enveloping me in a hug. I let her sink into my embrace.

“I'm glad you found your way back.” She tells me.

 

Years pass and I hardly make any progress. My skill in keeping elements stable together has improved. I have learned to make more and more intricate patterns, lattices and matrices and crystallization that could be mixed together in an endless number of ways. However no matter how sophisticated I make these structures they always collapse before I can form anything worthwhile. The lion-turtle watches me with endless patience, neither encouraging nor disparaging. I would take the latter if I could get the former every now and then. Meanwhile I watch Raava grow old.

She becomes like a sister to me, my closest friend. I realize that among anyone living she is the one that knows the most about me. Not even Hajuk knew about my past, or about my talents. At least not while he was alive. I have trouble accepting the Hajuk inside of me as the real thing. I visit them all from time to time but his is the presence that hurts me the most. He was right before when he said there was so much missing from him. He could act like the real Hajuk but it is easy to see that he is but a shadow, a piece of his life disconnected from all the rest. It's hard to look into the eyes of someone you love and not recognize what is there.

One day Raava comes to me.

“Do you have a moment?” She asks. I'm in the middle of mixing together ice and earth more efficiently. Recently I have decided that although my composition of the four elements has become more nuanced it is obviously not enough. Therefore I've been practicing on two in the hopes I'll find some sort of secret refinement that will help get me closer to my goal. If she's asking now it must be important. I let the pattern fall gently back into its bowl, becoming mush. I hadn't been getting anywhere anyway.

“What is it?”

“I have a favor to ask.” She speaks so quietly lately. I've been meaning to ask her about it. 

“Anything you'd like.” I tell her. “I owe it to you for waiting with me here for all these years.”

“Can you help me up the mountain?” Her question pierces straight into my heart. 

A few years back we had hiked up a local mountain. It wasn't too tough of a hike but our old bones ached trying to get us to the summit. We quit about two thirds of the way up when we came across a shelf that poked out from the mountain's side. Spread across it is a lovely field of panda-lilies and a gorgeous view of the land below, edged with rivers and grasslands and the village in the distance so like a set of toys.

She made me promise that when she asked I'd go with her back up that mountain and bury her there.

“What for?” I ask her, trying my best not to remember all the painful coughing I'd noticed from her lately. How tired she looks. How she was having trouble remembering things... “You've been insisting you've been fine when I've offered to heal you.”

“You know as well as I that I was lying.” She scolds me. “And your healing can't help this. I'm just old, Manu. It's time.”

“Does it have to be now?” My eyes water and she places a gnarled hand on my cheek, tears streaming down her face.

“If I wait one more day I will not make it...” With how weak her voice sounds I believe her.

I offer to earthbend her up the mountain but she refuses, saying she doesn't deserve her nice grave if she cannot reach it. I wonder where she gets this morbid sense of justice from but let her have her way. I could always help her when she is ready.

It is painfully slow going. We are both weakened with age and with her illness she can only press for so long before having to rest. It is nearly midday before we are halfway up the mountainside.

“We'll never make it at this rate.” I tell her. “Are you sure you want to walk?”

“I'm sure, Manu.” She assures me. “Be patient. I am in no rush to die.”

“That's not what I-” She barrels past me, winding me as she jabs me with her elbow.

This seems to renew her vigor as we makes good time up the hill. Soon I can see the outcrop in the distance. At last her energy gives way and she plops onto the ground to catch her breath, looking up at the cliff with an odd mix of contentment and fear. I wonder what thoughts are crossing through her mind just then. There is quiet all around us. Even the wind refuses to stir. 

“Well then... It's time...” She groans as she eases herself onto her feet. “No use in waiting any longer.”

We make our sluggish way up the last hundred feet or so to our destination. The panda-lilies are waiting for us, it being that time of year. Amazing how she had timed it like that. At last she gives in, leaning heavily on my shoulder as we walk through the soft grass. I find a stone that doesn't look horribly uncomfortable and we sit down together on it.

“I don't... have much time...” Her voice is so weak. She doesn't need to tell me how much time she has left. “I must... ask... something... of you... please...”

“Anything.” I say, tears running down my face, dripping from my chin. I wipe them away, making my whole face feel as if it were burning.

“Please... take me... within you...” She begs.

“What?” I look down at her with horror. Her vision may be clouded but she looks upon me with icy clarity. “You don't know what you're asking!”

“Yes I do!” The fervor in her insistence makes her cough painfully again, wet and harsh. A trickle of blood oozes from the corner of her lip.

“You won't be you.” I tell you. “You'll just be a fragment... A ghost... Is that what you want?”

“I want... to help... you...” She smiles and clasps the sides of my face... so desperate... so weak... “I have... made... peace... with my... life...” She cuts herself off with another fit of coughing. She's so far gone I'm afraid she won't make it through it. At last she recovers. “Let my... serenity... come to... you...”

I don't want to do this. Ever since Gonan I never wanted to. What more could I gain than I already had? How much more could I allow myself to steal? It isn't right. And yet I'm looking into her eyes, watching the life leak out of them moment by moment. Her hands collapse to her sides, her breathing shorter and shorter. She only has seconds. In all our time together she has never asked for anything. I look up at the sky.

“This is the last time.” I vow to nothing in particular as I draw out the bloody threads from her dying body.

It is easy enough to bury her after. I simply bend a hollow beneath the grass and gently lay her body within before sealing it above with the rock she had died on. I want to meet her inside of me but when I go to meditate I cannot fall within myself like I normally can do. I suppose I will have to wait.

I make my way down the mountain, more determined than ever to find what I have been looking for.

**SHE HAS LEFT US**

He looks at me, not a hint of shock or loss on his face. I suppose that makes sense. He must have faced this countless times.

“Yes.” I confirm, not wanting to speak on the subject more. The lion-turtle doesn't take the hint.

**AND YET I SENSE SOMETHING OF HER WITHIN YOU**

I should've known there was no point trying to keep anything from this bastard. 

“She asked me to.” I explain. “I didn't want to.”

**I AM NOT ASSIGNING BLAME. INDEED I BELIEVE YOU HAVE DONE WELL**

“Is that all I am good for?” I ask him. “Taking life?”

**YOU DO NOT TAKE LIFE. YOU SHARE IT WITH THE PEOPLE YOU HAVE MERGED WITH. IT IS THE SAME AS WHAT YOU HUMANS CALL RELATIONSHIPS. YOU SHARE YOURSELVES WITH ONE ANOTHER, TAKE PIECES OF EACH OTHER WITH YOU AS YOU MOVE THROUGHOUT YOUR LIVES. THIS IS MUCH THE SAME.**

“I do not see it that way.”

**THEN SEE IT FOR THE GIFTS IT GIVES YOU. ALREADY I CAN SENSE HER CALM SETTLING INTO YOU. IT WILL HELP YOU IN YOUR WORK.**

“We shall see.”

Oddly enough no fever comes to me in the next days. I had come to expect it every time I take someone's blood this way. Was my body getting used to the process? Or had the fact the Raava had been willing made it so that she did not fight the merging? In any case I don't plan on ever finding out.

I notice that a preternatural calm has come over me like a warm, comfortable blanket. It's not that I am insulated from the world, kept safe and removed, but rather that instead of painful my experience becomes soothing, as if each breath were a caress upon my soul. Is this how she lived her life? Waiting with curious anticipation for the next moment to arrive?

It bleeds into my work. Instead of frustration I find myself inspired by the marvels I am able to make even if in the end they are failures. Instead of raging at the mistakes that destroy my progress I accept them for what they are and move on, grateful for the lesson in limitations the mistake has taught me. I realize that I have been given a unique opportunity to engage in the fundamental forces that make up the world around me and that in doing so I have learned so very much. My experimentation has led me to learn how to encourage plant growth. I plant seeds and within a year they become a grove of full grown trees, a process that should take a whole lifetime. I learn to make a little rain cloud and from there how to craft a rainbow. That leads me to realize that through fire I can bend light and I find I can generate light without heat so that I shine like an impotent sun. In my more leisurely hours I practice sculpting smoke and mist. The consistency of both are just different enough to make many complicated layers. My latest has been of Hajuk facing the dragon all those years ago. It's hard to make the dragon's fire look like anything other than a spout of steam from a teapot but I'm proud of the rest.

The primal however continues to elude me and I find that though the eyes of the lion-turtle betray no emotion I find him visiting me more often, looking with his endless, unblinking stare.

**YOU HAVE DONE WELL, LITTLE BENDER**

“And yet I haven't succeeded.”

**I ALWAYS EXPECTED THIS WOULD TAKE TIME**

“I have learned much.” I tell him with a little pride, he accepts it placidly. “But I feel no closer to producing the primal. Are you sure there is nothing you can tell me? Nothing you can do to help me along?”

**I HAVE LIVED MANY OF YOUR LIFETIMES BUT EVEN I WAS NOT THERE AT THE TIME OF CREATION. I ONLY KNOW WHAT MY FATHER TOLD ME OF WHAT HE SAW.**

“Wait...” I have to confirm this. “Are you saying your people were around before creation itself?”

**SO SAID MY FATHER. HE WAS THE ELDEST AMONG US SO NO ONE COULD GAINSAY HIM. HE TOLD ME LION-TURTLES WERE THE GUARDIANS OF CREATION. THAT WE HAD HELPED THE WORLD FORM AND SET TIME UPON ITS COURSE AND THUS WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR ITS GUIDANCE.**

“How do you remember all this but not your name?”

**A NAME IS USELESS IF NONE ARE AROUND TO USE IT. I REMEMBER WHAT IS IMPORTANT.**

Something about the way he says this makes me incredibly sad. Here is a creature like to a god and yet it is bound to this lake by its duty. He has waited so long that he no longer has a use for his own name. His kind hunted to the point where he had to dedicate his immeasurable life to fixing it. How much else of himself has he given over the long years? What will he do if I cannot figure out the secret he has been searching for so long?

I redouble my efforts, taking less and less time to rest. There is a feeling welling up inside of me. I can't explain it but I know I'm getting close. Something in the way that the elements dance together as I weave them shows a sort of... teasing. As if they themselves wanted to be united but were waiting for just the right coaxing to do so. I'm so close... and yet the final steps elude me. I remain in this limbo in which earth repels fire and air collapses upon itself until it is a dense pocket trapped in the roiling chaos of the other elements. Water flows in channels connecting the earth and fire. 

It is the first time I have felt a sense of progress in years. Finally I have managed a stable formation that supports all four elements together without disintegrating. It is exhilarating. The product of countless hours of trial and error. And yet having finally arrived here I find I'm at a loss. Any steps I try to take beyond to make them merge destabilizes the formation. Was it simply impossible? Could it be that once the primal had formed into the four fundamental elements it could no longer be reverted back to its pure form?

I can't accept that. Not yet. But still I have no path, no plan to follow. The lion-turtle is no help.

**YOU HAVE ALREADY PROGRESSED IN WAYS I DO NOT UNDERSTAND. I CAN ONLY MANIPULATE THE ENERGY, NOT THE SUBSTANCE IT CREATES LIKE YOUR KIND DOES.**

My long lost frustration finally resurfaces and I go out among the empty fields to toss ever increasing in size boulders as far as I possibly can with my bending. After and hour or so I am sweaty and exhausted and the stars start to come out in the night sky. I had once asked the lion-turtle what they were. He told me they were points of creation like the sun, not as pure as the primal element but the closest translation of it in this world. Energy erupts from them like an explosion, yet controlled so that it flows and nurtures life rather than destroys it. That is, as long as you're the right distance from it. He continued on about planets and realms that exist beyond the scope of our world but I could not follow his words. They were too strange and terrifying.

The stars... If they were the closest in concept to the primal element wouldn't that mean that out of anything in the world that is the closest to how the primal behaves? If that were true it would mean that I had been going about it all wrong. The primal wouldn't be something that was crafted like a tool or structure. It is the construction of energy itself. And energy flows.

That isn't to say that my journey to finding the stable formation is useless. In fact it gives me a starting point. I believe if I can time the formation so that it is created instantaneously I can force an interaction that sets off a controlled explosion following the stability of the initial structure. If it works according to how I imagine, it should ignite the four elements at once and in that volatile state they will be able to merge, hopefully into the primal. I share my thoughts with the people living within me.

 

_“It's dangerous.” Gonan says. Having finally managed to sooth his wounded pride the man has decided he is glad to still be alive in some form. He guards my life greedily. “Instead of succeeding you could kill us all in an explosion.”_

_“But the explosion can only follow the path of the initial formation.” Umani argues on my behalf. I should have expected her to support something reckless like this. “As long as his bending is good.”_

_“No offense, my love.” I wish Hajuk would stop doing that. He thinks he's doing me a favor by pretending to feel affection but it's just so hollow. “But you are not as young as you used to be. Even so you have never tried all forms of bending at the same time.”_

_“He has a good point.” The nameless man jumps in, ever the practical one. In all these years he has refused to give me his name._

_“I have faith in him.” Raava interjects, she sits upon a smooth, featureless, marble seat. “He has come this far. We are too close to fail now.”_

_“I'm sure that's what many failures tell themselves before they blow themselves up.” Gonan rolls his eyes._

_“I will obviously practice bending with more than one element before attempting the fusion, Gonan, Hajuk.” I cut in, trying to get my opinion heard about what to do with my life. “When did the two of you become the nags?” They both silently resent that._

_“Raava is right.” The rest of the group groans at my conclusion._

_“Of course she is...” The nameless man mutters not quite under his breath._

_“She is.” I insist. “I have followed this path for too long and I am too old to turn back now. There is no place for me among the four nations. I have no money and no wish to labor for meager pay until I collapse on some lord's field. This is what I must do or die in the attempt.”_

_“What a waste.” Gonan huffs. “With your power you could've been King of the World. Had any man or woman you wanted. Wealth. Power. Glory. Instead you wallow with this stupid, senile turtle and chase after nothing.”_

_“It's not nothing.” Raava has her fists clenched so tight they are shaking. “You'll see.”_

 

I come back up and sigh, realizing that my inner council had not helped me much with my decision. While I had committed to my task in front of them now I couldn't help but doubt. Gonan's words struck me even though I didn't want them to. He was right. I had all the power in the world to do whatever I wanted with it. And what had I done except run away losing everyone and everything I had ever cared about? Was all of this worth it? I suppose I would never know until I saw it through to the end.

It's a lot harder to bend multiple elements than I had anticipated. While trying to attune to the different senses I find they often got crossed, leading me to bend the wrong element. Sometimes I would go to throw a rock and start a breeze and instead I would follow it with fire. Thankfully there is no one around to get hurt by my accidents. I figure it must be from my chi. The pieces of my friends within me must be misaligned with everyone's opposing opinions. I go to the turtle for help but when he touches my chest and forehead the roaring hum shows that my chi is flowing freer than ever before.

**THE HESITATION COMES FROM YOU, LITTLE BENDER**

Progress is painfully slow but measurable. Each day it becomes easier to maintain my focus till at last I am able to summon the correct pair of elements every time. Adding a third feels like transitioning from two balls to three in juggling. I fumble for a while but over time it comes almost naturally to me. As natural as any of this is anyway. The fourth comes hardest. No matter how elegantly I try to weave it into the rest it sends it all tearing into chaos. I start small but even then I find myself releasing balls of lightning or molten slag shooting every which way. Once catches me on the shoulder and burns me terribly. Even after healing it takes a week for me to get back into bending form.

Turns out the break was what was needed. After spending time away from bending I manage to break out of the habits I had been subconsciously forming. I find the fourth has become less volatile. At last it merges and I am able to guide it somewhat. Before long I believe I have mastered the precision needed to test out my theory.

The lion-turtle insists on being there when I tell him of my plan. I warn him of the danger but he dismisses me out of hand.

**I HAVE LIVED SO LONG MY DEATH WOULD BE MEANINGLESS**

I take in a big shuddering breath. More likely than not I was only going to have one shot at this. If I make a mistake, judging from the difficulties in controlling all four together, I think Gonan might be right and I won't survive it. But I'm past caring about that now. 

I draw my arms in a wide circle to my sides, building up the energy I need to make this work. I reach out with my senses all at once, fighting the confusion that comes with grasping so much at once. Once I feel my grip tight around them I start to push them into formation, guiding each piece with an intricate dance of my arms and fingers, my body flowing through pose after pose, seeming always to be midway between the forms I had come to learn for the different elements. In moments it's over and the careful lattice of my design is complete. Now I must let go.

The moment I do is terrifying as the lattice glows white hot. I am sure it is going to explode, annihilating me from the surface of this world. Maybe a part of me wanted it to. I hold my breath as it continues to glow brighter, searing my eyes with its intensity. The formation begins to dissolve and I watch the white specs of its form spiral out and form bubbles that merge together, becoming a pulsing , flowing globe of golden light. Then there is an instant where the whole thing collapses into a tiny point and all is darkness around it. I can only see the faintest outline of my hands and the great eyes of the lion-turtle that betray some slight hint of excitement. It's so very quiet.

Then with a distant growing roar the point expands becoming an orb of golden flame. No... it is not gold. It was the merging of colors so fine and intricate that at the same time I could perceive every shade I had ever witnessed and more. A golden rainbow of such sublime beauty that I'm not sure if I can gaze upon anything else ever again.

**YOU HAVE DONE IT, LITTLE BENDER. THERE CAN BE NO DOUBT. THIS IS THE PRIMAL ELEMENT OF CREATION**

I have no words. I can only gape in open awe at the display set before me. I realize that I had been wrong before. There was more than color inside. There were questions and answers. Visions and dreams and nightmares. Thoughts and memories. Love and joy and despair and so much more.

**THE FUNDAMENTAL FLAW OF HUMANITY IS THAT IT DOES NOT LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO PERCEIVE THE DESTRUCTION ITS SELFISHNESS CAUSES.**

I watch the lion-turtle touch the flame, it glows blindingly bright as he does so, using his claw to draw a line from it to my forehead. It's piercing, searing, agonizing. Yet somehow glorious in its brilliant intensity. I find myself feeling... purified by it.

**YOU WILL BE THE SOLUTION TO THAT FLAW. THE BRIDGE THAT WILL CARRY THE WISDOM OF AGES TO BE SHARED AMONG YOUR KIND AS IT GROWS. WE ARE TOO FEW TO CARRY OUT THAT ROLE ANY LONGER.**

I don't understand what he's saying, can no longer even question what he is doing to me or why. I simply look on as he touches the flame again, drawing another line to my heart. As he does so I am filled to the brim with every emotion imaginable. Agony and ecstasy and terrifying joy. Loathing and disgust and furious delirium. Emotions too complicated for words, so much that I feel like I will burst.

**AND SO I BIND YOU, MANU TO THE FABRIC OF THE WORLD. THE PART OF YOU THAT ALLOWS YOU TO MANIPULATE THE FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENTS WILL PASS ON TO THE FUTURE LIVES THIS BINDING GIVES YOU.**

He continues to draw lines from the glistening flame, casting points to the ground around me. I watch as vines grow from them, glowing with the same fire as the primal element. They writhe as they reach towards me yet somehow I am not afraid. I am too filled with all the splendor of creation to be afraid.

**FORGIVE ME, LITTLE BENDER. THIS IS A HEAVY BURDEN TO GIVE ANOTHER. BUT YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN BEAR IT.**

I want to laugh. He asks for forgiveness? This is justice. 

The vines start to touch me, their glowing limbs burrowing into my own. I feel myself being drawn into it, my body merging with the pure energy of creation. I gasp aloud as I continue to dissolve into its embrace becoming one with the pure light as it forms me into something new and wonderful though a part of me can't help but feel sad before I stop feeling anything describable.

 

The lion-turtle looks upon his work. Perhaps he feels remorse as he does this, gazing upon the little banyan tree that stands where a man just was. It is not easy to tell what thoughts lie behind those great ancient eyes. It stares long into the night, contemplating before at last closing them.

**IT IS DONE**

And with that he recedes back into his lake home as the fireflies gather around the pool of lotuses bobbing in the wake of his return. The tree stands silent and alone.


End file.
